On the Road to Recovery
by Nevermore
Summary: Two traumatized kindred take to the road in search of therapy - one looking to face her fears head on, and the other hoping she can finally get some answers. (Complete.)
1. Prologue

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.

This is the part where I usually write that such and such a character is the intellectual property of so-and-so, and that I'm using that character with permission. I'm not doing that this time. Fact is, **Icy Mike Molson** and I have both written these characters so much that there's an annoying bit of each of us in all of them. Therefore, I'm just naming him as co-author, since without his earlier (and hopefully ongoing) contributions to all of these characters, this story would not exist.

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**Author's Note:** This story is intended to be one part in a continuing series, and as such will not be as satisfying if read as a stand-alone story. I'm attempting to do what I can to make it readable as a stand-alone, but there's a lot that came before that simply cannot be suitably condensed as referenced back-story. Further complicating the matter is the fact that this story builds on the events of two stories by **Icy Mike Molson**, neither of which has been posted and only one of which has even been written. Events of a third story, also unwritten, are peripherally important and I'm reasonably certain I can work around them.

So what does this all mean? For those who read this fairly short Prologue and find it interesting enough to take a shot at reading the whole story – but who want more of the back-story – the shortest (and I use that word loosely) way to catch up is to read my story _Le Bon Temps Roule_. That has all of the same characters dealing with some issues that develop into the action herein. _Bon Ton_ (as I call that story) is also fairly stand-alone, though there are over a half-dozen preceding stories that add greater depth if read first. **Icy Mike's** _Sleight of Hands_ would also be helpful, as it serves as a sort-of origins story for Erica Blackwell and introduces Philip and Hassan (while pointedly passing up on the opportunity for the presentation of their origins).

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**On the Road to Recovery**

by Nevermore

with Icy Mike Molson

**Prologue**

_All of the beautiful people,_ Erica Blackwell mused as she looked around at the crowd of who's who in South Beach. Everyone who was anyone was there at Versace's First Annual Beach and Bodywear Show, and Erica had to remind herself not to gawk when Giselle Bundchen spilled some of her chocolate martini and every man within five yards rushed to the woman's aid. _Ten years ago it would have been impossible for me to get in here,_ she knew, enjoying the fact that all of her hard-earned money had finally bought something she could appreciate. _And with a hundred thousand in my own account, plus well over a million in the emergency fund I share with K.T., there'll be many more things my hard-earned money will buy tonight. Because, after all, this **is** an emergency – a fashion emergency._

"Excuse me," Donna Karan muttered as she stepped past Erica and toward a man who looked like a younger version of Tyson Beckford. The designer did a double take when she saw the mercenary, making Erica certain that she recognized her from one of the many shows the Ventrue had attended in Manhattan, but she then moved on without stopping for any chitchat. The simple fact that Erica may have been recognized, however, was enough to keep her glowing for over half an hour. By that time it was starting to hit her just how different fashion shows were when you were alone in the room.

Minutes started to drag on, and Erica began to wonder whether it was solely her isolation that was responsible for her increasing lack of interest in her surroundings. _After all, there were a couple of shows I went to alone in New York and I still managed to have a blast._ It was only then that Erica realized that she was actually expending effort trying to have fun. _Just a few years ago this would have been the realization of a dream; now it seems like a waste of time. All those years of running around with K.T. must be having an effect on me._

Celebrities strutted past her like peacocks displaying their feathers, all of them allowing her the same comfortable amount of personal space that they made certain they gave each other, while never actually acknowledging her presence. No one seemed to have a clue that the normally rough and tumble mercenary had no business at Donatella Versace's latest impromptu party; she was young, attractive, and expensively dressed. She had an eye for fashion that allowed her to blend effortlessly, and had any partygoers given Erica Blackwell's presence any thought, they likely would have concluded that she was an up-and-coming designer who at one point might have had aspirations of being a model. At least before discovering that attractive just wasn't good enough in a world where ravishingly perfect was the industry standard. But no one paid her any mind.

Erica had been to enough shows in Manhattan to know that she only needed to wait a few hours and no end of men would eventually approach her. _Once they all figure out that they're not leaving with a supermodel, anyway,_ she thought bitterly. Not long ago – though it seemed like a lifetime ago, now – she looked forward to that palpable change in atmosphere, when the superstars began to mingle only with each other and the 'commoners' were left to fend for themselves, eventually organizing into several other social strata that consisted of the ridiculously wealthy nouveau riche, the up-and-comers, the hangers-on, the has-beens, and the never-will-be's. Two years of party hopping in the garment district had allowed Erica to make the tough progression from a never-will-be to a hanger-on, and there were signs she had the potential to be an up-and-comer. Then K.T. had come; and change had come with him, faster than a speeding bullet. _A .44 bullet fired from a Ruger Redhawk. One little mistake by my friends, and I lost everything that ever meant anything to me. For years I've been quietly miserable about that, but being here now… It doesn't seem like it's really that big a deal._

A thumping bass beat suddenly started reverberating through the large club, and Erica almost gagged when a horrifying thought popped up in her mind – _I could really go for some Stevie Ray right about now… maybe 'Texas Flood' or 'Little Wing.'_ "Oh God, why have you forsaken me?" she muttered, stifling a laugh at the realization of how much she had changed since meeting K.T. _As Blink 182 sang, I guess this must be growing up._

Erica's inhuman charisma suddenly rolled off of her, and no one seemed to mind overly much when she all but threw them out of her way as she sought a spot in the corner, allowing herself as clear a view of her surroundings as possible. Once her back was firmly against the wall, a whiskey sour in hand, she realized that she was standing in the very place K.T. would have selected, offering a commanding view of her surroundings while minimizing her own profile and presence to those who might be looking for her. She had not made any concerted effort to behave as she thought he might; her actions, while identical to what his would have been, were now her own. And a small teardrop of blood formed in the corner of her eye as she realized that she was no longer the little girl who had played socialite in Manhattan.

"Holy shit! Erica Blackwell?" Erica's head whirled with the question, the sound of her name drawing her attention immediately despite the continued pounding bass that had recently changed tempo slightly as one techno song bled seamlessly into a different – though fairly indistinguishable – European electronica song. The young woman who stood only four feet from Erica's shoulder was staring at her with an awed and fairly dumbstruck expression that seemed so genuinely benign that Erica was able to resist the impulse to draw her weapon and put it to the stranger's forehead.

"It's Maria Di Generro," the woman prompted, as if the utterance of her name should have immediately cleared up any and all confusion. Seeing that Erica still had no idea who she was, Maria continued. "From high school," she prompted. "I was the homecoming queen our senior year. President of our class. Our boyfriends were best friends. We hung out like all the time. You were in my old Cadillac when my boyfriend totaled it."

"Oh, sure… Maria," Erica said with a faux embarrassed roll of her eyes. "I don't know where my head is," she laughed as she wracked her brain for a single relevant memory of the woman who stood before her. Try as she might, she could only recall snippets of her days as a carefree teen; she had the Sabbat to thank for that. Years of indoctrination had done a thorough job first of making her resent her mortal life, and then forget it. She was suddenly surprised that her time of freedom with K.T. had not inspired her to try to remember her earlier years. _Maybe it's because K.T. always seems to be in a hurry to forget his own mortal life…_ "You look so different," Erica commented, directing a wide, sweeping gesture toward her forgotten friend's voluptuous figure. "I hardly recognized you."

"I recognized you right away," Maria replied, her jet-black curls bouncing on her head. "Seriously, Erica, you've hardly changed at all."

"How little you know."

"Married? Kids?"

"No," Erica replied curtly, deciding that she had quickly had her fill of her two-woman high school reunion.

"Not missing anything on the marriage front," Maria told her, "though I do have a little girl waiting for me at home. She was the only good thing that came out of my marriage, I guess."

"Great," Erica said with a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill. She was surprised at how empty she felt. It had been a long time since she had thought about the fact that she would never have kids. _Like K.T. said one time – people achieve immortality through their children. Since we're already immortal, it seems sterility is a logical tradeoff._

"Hey, you okay?" Maria asked. "Your eye… I think it's bleeding."

"Oh, crap," Erica muttered, immediately peeling her cocktail napkin from the bottom of her condensation-drenched glass and dabbing at the corner of her eyes. "Scuba-diving accident," she explained, shouting over the music the first thing that leaped to mind and regretting it as soon as she spoke. _A scuba-diving accident?_ she asked herself. _That's the best you could do?_

"Your eye bleeds because of a scuba accident?" Maria asked, her own eyes going wide in shock.

"Yeah, something about the tear ducts getting torn or something," Erica explained absently. "I don't really understand much more than I can't go diving for at least another year."

"How'd it happen?"

"Moray eel," Erica answered, wondering whether the casual observer would choose her or Maria as the stupider of the two – her for coming up with such a half-ass story, or Maria for believing even a word of it.

"Wow, that's… different," Maria said. "I've never heard of that." _Which is why you probably believed it,_ Erica decided, knowing from experience that people knew all too well that truth was often stranger than fiction. "You gonna be around awhile?" Maria asked. "We could catch up. Last I heard about you, you ran off with some artist while you were at NYU, started posing for nude paintings and stuff."

"If only it were so," Erica responded, wondering whether she meant it. _Would I really change anything if I had it to do over again? Would I really give up immortality? Would I prefer to grow old if it meant that I could get married and have kids and do all that stuff I always thought I'd do someday when I was still a kid?_

"Well, it was great to see ya, but I really should get back to my roommate's gang of admirers," Maria said, pointedly failing to invite Erica over for a round of introduction. Maria smiled broadly and then walked away to a large crowd that Erica was certain was full of hangers-on; Erica stood alone for hours, plagued by her questions as she stared vacantly around her.

The party was starting to die down, the music fading to a volume that allowed dozens of self-serving conversations to crop up around the club, when she recognized another familiar face. "Another blast from the past; and this one, I remember." Horatio – she had never known him by any other name – stood at the center of a large group of up-and-comers, his affable smile drawing the admiration of the men and the interest of the women. In all actuality, he was nothing worth writing home about, at least not in a party full of models, movie stars, and entertainment power brokers. Horatio stood just under six feet tall and had dull brown hair, dull brown eyes, and features that could be considered proportional but would never be mistaken for handsome. His skin was noticeably pale against the backdrop of copper-tone South Beach bodies, and his black pants and shirt, while suitably fashionable (Erica was of the opinion that black never really went out of style), only enhanced his pallor.

_Presence,_ Erica decided, reaching the conclusion that she was not the only one in the club making use of abilities unique to the kindred. _Except he's not kindred – he's a vampire. He's Sabbat._ Erica tried to remember when she had last seen Horatio but came upon the same mental fog that always clouded every attempt at recalling her final two months in New York City. Erica was certain that she had run into Horatio at some point shortly before leaving Manhattan, but she had no memory of specifics.

A familiar flash of rage shot through her body; she felt violated, victimized. It was the same way she felt every time she remembered how K.T. had admitted to allowing someone to alter several of her memories and completely erase a great many more. Oftentimes, in the evening when she woke up early and K.T. always slept late, she would fantasize about tracking down the facts of her past, about finding out exactly what had happened to her and why K.T. thought allowing the rape of her mind was preferable to the alternative. Whatever that was.

_Fuck him,_ Erica decided, tossing aside all of the warnings he had given her, all of the earnest pleas for her just to let it go and not pursue something that could get her killed. _I've had it with all this secretive shit. Being what I am has already cost me enough – marriage, kids, grandkids, holidays with family, all that happy horseshit. I gave up my mortality and everything that went with it in exchange for another life. Then I lost that life because one of my friends decided to play politics and sell us out. Sure, if it weren't for K.T. I'd probably be dead; but if not for K.T., I would at least have known why I was dying. He's away doing whatever it is he does when he wanders off… Time for me to do what I want for once._

"Horatio?" Erica called out, waving cheerily at the vampire whose eyes practically burst forth from their sockets when he set his gaze on her. Erica sashayed on over, as if she hadn't a care in the world, as if she hadn't spent years honing her combat skills and becoming an increasingly competent mercenary. For a moment, Erica almost felt as if she had fallen out of a time machine and into the middle of her life as it had been years earlier, before she had met K.T. The world was her oyster; she was surrounded by like-minded people who understood the value of going out to see and be seen, and she was now the center of attention of a man who commanded the attention of others. As Erica focused more on the expression Horatio was trying to hide, the one that spoke of fear and a sudden consideration of the merits of bolting, she was reminded that there was no time machine, there was no going back. Her mind was too occupied with the situation, though, for her to notice how happy she was about that. All that mattered now was dealing with the New York vampire who had mustered a happy smile that would make any glad-handing Republican jealous.

"Erica Blackwell!" His voice was full of a joy that his eyes obviously couldn't hear – his suspicious gaze never left Erica's hands. "I haven't seen you in ages. Everyone, this here is Erica Blackwell," he said, introducing her to his new circle of friends. "Erica Blackwell is an old friend of mine from New York City." Erica had not missed the fact that he all but shouted her name three times with one breath, or that he had seemed to put a slight stress on the words 'New York City.' It was subtle, but she had caught it. And she was certain she wouldn't have noticed back when she was a Sabbat neophyte in Manhattan, concerned only with partying and fashion. That was before she could better resist the effects of a vampire's presence, before she learned to read body language and voice modulations. Of course, the fact that someone on the edge of the group broke away and immediately opened a cell phone did little to add subtlety to Horatio's ruse.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" Horatio asked as Erica walked into his little circle of admirers.

"Why, I've been hiding from you, silly," she said, slapping him lightly on the shoulder as she laughed for the entertainment of everyone else. They all laughed with her, as enthralled by her presence as they were with Horatio's. The other vampire's eyes darkened, only for a moment, but Erica knew enough to realize that she was playing a very dangerous game. _And if I don't get out of here soon, I may not get out at all._ "I'm sorry to say this old friend, but I have to be going," she said, turning again to the crowd as she flashed a playful pout that elicited a new round of smiles.

"But there's so much we could catch up on," Horatio objected.

"There'll be time," Erica promised. Horatio's sycophants continued to smile, demonstrating the single-minded focus of trained circus monkeys, but she was certain her old friend caught the sudden menace she was subtlely injecting into her tone. "There'll be plenty of time, Horatio. So long as you're away from New York, you can count on running into me. I'll be seeing you."

Erica turned and walked away, remaining focused on the main doors even as her eyes passed across the room, verifying the position of every one of the emergency exits she had located first thing upon entering the club. She heard a young female voice fawning to Horatio behind her, and she barely resisted the temptation to turn and see the look on his face when she said, "Gee, Horatio, you and her must be pretty good friends if she's willing to meet up with you anywhere."

_To be continued………………………_

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**Author's Endnote:** Too many notes, so I'll make this brief. This story is pretty much done in its initial draft, which means only editing and one more scene are needed. The hold-up is Icy Mike, who's had the first draft for weeks and has yet to return any work on it. If you want this updated quickly, email him.


	2. Chapter 1

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

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**Author's Note:** Sorry for the long time before the update. Serious character issues have been raised, and it was necessary to spend more time than expected making sure that I don't destroy the integrity of certain characters contained herein.

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**Chapter 1**

**I  
**Johnny Yashida had just finished Part 2 of The Stand when he heard an insistent knocking on his door. Placing his beaten-up Batman bookmark in place, the small Telemon trudged sleepily toward the doorway, not even bothering to carry a weapon with him. While he was far from home and in a relatively indefensible hotel room, he found it hard to become too concerned. The war with the Sabbat was easily put out of one's mind in the less-than-buzzing city of Boise, Idaho.

"Who is it?" he asked as he reached the door, standing to the left of the doorway to make certain that he would not be shot if he had run into the one or two aggressive vampires in the upper Midwest.

"Western Union," a cheery voice announced from outside. "I have a telegram for a Mr. Jonathan Yashida."

"Slip it under the door," Johnny instructed, grabbing his 9mm from the holster hanging in the closet just inside the entrance. He was not expecting a telegram and couldn't remember ever receiving a telegram in his life – either before or after his embrace. He stifled a yawn that reminded him of how close sunrise was. _If it's a hit, I'm fucked. The sun'll be up within a half hour; if I have to run, I won't have much time to find a place to bed down for the day. If that's someone's ghoul out there…_

"I'm sorry, sir, I need a signature," the man explained from outside. "If you'd prefer that I come back-"

"Who's the telegram from?"

"A Princess Michelle Marlowe," the man answered. "Wow, you know a princess?" The question was spoken with such surprise that Johnny was immediately convinced that he was in no danger.

"She'd like to think so," Johnny grumbled under his breath so that the messenger would not hear. "Hold on," he said more loudly, opening the door with his right hand while concealing his left hand – holding his pistol – behind his back.

The messenger handed a pen to the Telemon while holding out a manila envelope in his other hand. "Right here, sir," he said far more amiably than Johnny thought should have been possible so early in the morning. _Or so late in the night, depending on who you're talking to._ Johnny signed a slip that was attached to the envelope, and then the messenger tore off a copy of the receipt and handed the parcel to the kindred.

"Thanks lots," Johnny said, a flourish of his hand producing a five-dollar bill that he handed to the messenger. He was completely unsure of telegram etiquette, but he would rather tip when not necessary than not tip when it was expected. _Far better a spendthrift than a tightwad._ He closed the door, fought back a yawn, and opened the envelope, finding a hand-written letter rather than a telegram. He immediately recognized the handwriting as Michelle's.

_Dearest Johnny,  
I have to go away for a while to work some things out. It's no secret that it hasn't been the same between us since the whole thing with DuPree, and I'm tired of sitting here waiting for everything to get better on its own. It's been two years now, watching you look at me for permission when you want to turn off a light, or walking on eggshells every time you say something that you think might remind me of the Sabbat and what they did to me. I've had it.  
Don't worry about me while I'm gone – I'll be careful, and I'm not gonna be alone. This isn't me getting kidnapped again or anything, so relax and know you're not about to get a call from some new spooky bad guy. I just have to do the Gangrel thing – spend some time away from the safe, secure, and familiar routine and face my fears head-on. I think it's the only way I'll ever get my head screwed back on straight. I guess I'll see ya when I see ya.  
Love,  
Princess Michelle xoxoxo  
P.S. – Let's be honest, Boise is kinda Dullsville anyway, so it's not like I'll be missing much. Maybe I'll catch up with you again in time to head somewhere fun. Like maybe L.A.!  
P.P.S. – Wasn't that cool with the Western Union guy? I've wanted to do that ever since I saw Back to the Future 2. And I know it was a dick move to send you this letter just before sunrise, but I wanted to get a head start before you got it in your head that it's a good idea to talk me out of this. Because it isn't, and you couldn't. See ya soon… hopefully in the dark._

"Goddamn it," Johnny cursed, stifling another yawn. "Of all the half-ass stupid things she's ever done, this takes the cake. What in God's name is she thinking?" For two years Johnny had watched as his companion suffered with the emotional and psychological scars of her captivity, oftentimes wondering if she would ever recover and occasionally – though very rarely – almost being thankful for the fact that her wounds kept her close to him. He had been through the wringer himself while she was held, and having her by his side meant knowing that she was safe, that she had not been taken again. Now she was gone, asserting her Gangrel-esque independence for the first time in years, and doing it at a very inopportune time.

_The clan is finally starting to get back out there, and this is when she decides to face her demons._ Thinking in those terms sent a chill through the small Telemon, and he reread the letter carefully, searching for any clue as to where Michelle had gone and what, exactly, she was planning to do. _'Do the Gangrel thing,'_ Johnny mused, pondering Michelle's choice of words. "Just what in hell does that mean?" His mind raced from one possibility to the next, until he arrived at an extremely uncomfortable possibility. _One thing I know for certain – the Gangrel are notorious for being loners. Is she trying to tell me that she's finally just gone off? Was it something I said? Was it something I did?_ As much as he tried to avoid it, his mind posed the inevitable question. _Did she finally have enough of me spending time with Uiko?_

That thought rattled around in Johnny's head, stirring up feelings he had thought he would be free of once he abandoned his mortality. _Angst_, he thought bitterly. _I feel like a goddamn teenager again, wondering what's really going through my girlfriend's mind. This is ridiculous._

"Stop it," he ordered himself. "She's as blood-bound to you as you are to her. Even if she had the will to break the bond, which I honestly doubt she does, she has no real reason." Yashida's thoughts went to countless blood-bonded relationships he had encountered over the years, and he remembered vividly how some thralls remained with their regents despite frequent, sometimes brutal abuse. _All I've done is not spend as much time with her as I did in the beginning. That's no reason to try to break a blood-bond. And besides,_ he reminded himself, _she doesn't have it in her. Not anymore. Not after what DuPree did to her._

_So that brings me back to the beginning – just what in the hell does she mean by 'do the Gangrel thing'?_ A frustrated laugh punctuated his realization that while his very own blood-bound companion was a Gangrel, he had virtually no idea what she meant by writing that she planned on behaving in some unpredictable, stereotypical Gangrel way. All he was certain of was that he did not care for the ominous tone of the words 'face my fears head on,' written just below the more ambiguous phrase that had kept him thinking so much already.

_Although I guess that could mean anything, _Johnny reasoned. _Could be she's wandering off to spend a day sleeping in a cave, knowing how it would freak her out when she woke up. Then again…_ Johnny could not imagine Michelle knowing where there were any suitable caves for such an experiment. The truth was that while she was a Gangrel, she had a far greater affinity for cities than most in her clan did. That difference in attitude had kept her from spending a great deal of her time socializing with clanmates, and that in turn kept Johnny from knowing much about them.

"So what's she gonna do, and where's she gonna do it?" Johnny asked his empty hotel room. A soft knock at his door distracted him. "Who is it?" Johnny yelled warily, once again moving toward the door and picking up his pistol.

"It's Mel," his childe's voice answered from outside. "Uiko's with me."

Johnny opened the door and stared at his two childer. "You both had room keys when you left earlier," he commented, stepping aside so they could enter. "Any particular reason why you knocked?"

"We saw the telegram guy outside," Melissa replied, once again doing the talking for the pair. "Uiko commented that she hadn't seen Michelle around, so we wanted to give you time to do what you need to do."

"Huh?"

"Did someone take her again?" Melissa asked.

"No," Johnny answered, confident of that much, at least.

"So, umm… was the telegram from her?"

"Yeah," Yashida admitted. "She's gone away for a bit to deal with her issues or something."

"Oh. Okay." Johnny turned and watched as both women stripped down and climbed into bed, trying to figure out how they could be so casual about a teammate walking out to do something on her own.

"That's it?" he finally asked. "Just 'Oh. Okay'? We have no idea what she's doing."

"But she hasn't been abducted," Uiko pointed out. "That means you're not about to abandon us again in favor of running off on some suicidal rescue mission."

"I guess," Johnny admitted, knowing better than to get into a debate involving that particular topic. He had always known that Melissa, Uiko, and Mason held a bit of a grudge that he had all but abandoned them two years earlier when he ran off to recover Michelle. He had explained briefly one time that he had not wanted to risk their safety dealing with something that was primarily his problem. He had had no idea that they all still harbored some resentment. "But the truth is that she may be getting herself into more than she can handle. I might have to go get her."

"She's a big girl," Melissa countered with a yawn. "Have you ever thought that if she's out there dealing with her issues – alone – that she doesn't want you there?"

"Uh-huh," Johnny grunted, though Melissa's words hit home. _She's right,_ he admitted to himself. _This is the same kind of thing I might do in her shoes, and I wouldn't want her around while I dealt with my issues. Hell, I'd probably **need** her not to be around._ The realization was uncomfortable but at least banished a great deal of Yashida's confusion and doubt. I_ have to leave her be. At least for now. There's no reason to interfere with what she has to do unless I have a reason to think she's in trouble._

**II  
**"Do you realize how hard it is to catch you alone nowadays?" Philip asked when Hassan answered the door to his small apartment. 

"I haven't really thought about it," Hassan grumbled. "It's been a long time since I've had an apprentice; I'd forgotten just how much work is involved."

"Surely you've been watching me over the years," Philip said amiably, following the Assamite into his home and sitting down on the brand new leather couch. As in every other home Hassan had had since the pair moved to the New World, his current apartment was decorated sparsely and with all new furniture. Philip was willing to bet that in the entire place, the only item with any personal significance was Hassan's battle-worn scimitar. The assassin could leave at a moment's notice and never give a second thought to the things he left behind. So long as he had his scimitar, everything else could be damned.

"I've been watching," Hassan admitted. "But we've never tried to mislead each other before, old friend, so why start now? The fact is that most of your protégés train themselves, much like fledgling birds pushed from the nest to fall or fly on their own. You set up interesting scenarios and toss them in; if they survive, they continue your harsh variety of training. If they don't, then they prove themselves unworthy. Perhaps you forget Sabiha," he said, referring to the last apprentice he had taken, over two hundred years earlier. "I take a rather more hands-on approach."

"Of course," Philip agreed, sounding almost as if he were chiding himself for having been so forgetful. "Two hundred years, and now you have taken the mighty K.T. Corben as a student. I wonder if he knows how privileged he is. Tell me Hassan, have you mentioned just how selective you've been over the years? Does he know the success your previous apprentices have enjoyed, the prestige they have all earned?"

"No," Hassan said flatly. "And he will learn nothing of them until I'm ready to share that information," Hassan growled in warning.

"Oh, please don't feel as if I was planning on telling him myself," Philip said, sounding absolutely scandalized at the insinuation that he might say or do something with ulterior motives. "K.T. Corben is all yours now, Hassan. I have no more business speaking with him than you have speaking with any of my students."

"Of which you currently have none," Hassan pointed out.

"But I have my eye on one," Philip reminded his old friend. "I'm still interested in young Mr. Yashida."

"Even after his clan's recent setbacks? I thought your interest based largely on the apparent potential of his clan, along with his place of importance amongst such promising neonates. If the entire bloodline has been taken down a peg, then so has the one who represents them."

"But perhaps you haven't noticed – they're making a comeback, Hassan." Philip almost seemed to glow with the words. "Pushed to the very brink of oblivion, and they now seem renewed, like a forest after a purging fire. I know some would be shocked by the comparison, but it's not since the Tremere that an unrecognized bloodline has withstood such an onslaught.

"They continue to recruit ready-made soldiers, and their success in defending their home turf against a concerted Sabbat offensive has opened quite a few eyes. The princes who've employed them, often against the advice of their peers, have been vindicated; the princes who've held to the belief that the Telemon would soon step badly and be destroyed have been proven a bit pessimistic and short-sighted. The Telemons' greatest challenge now is not survival, but providing help for each and every one of their new friends."

"So I hear," Hassan grumbled. "And don't think I don't see your hand behind this."

"Excuse me?" Philip asked, his voice containing both genuine surprise and feigned offense, making it impossible for the Assamite to guess his friend's true reaction.

"Someone is aiding the Telemon," Hassan explained, "and you're the only one I know who has both taken an interest and is in a position to give what they need."

"And what is it you think they need?"

"Guidance," Hassan answered simply. "They're disturbingly capable for ones so young, but they lack experience. I believe in neither coincidence nor luck, Philip. No matter how savvy and intuitive your Johnny Yashida may be, _no one_ walks through the halls of power without misstepping from time to time. Especially at his age. And no matter how well-trained they were in their mortal lives, no group of kindred should be so effective in combat against the Sabbat so early in their unlives. They have performed with inexplicable distinction, Philip. It was this distinction that attracted you to them in the first place, and it's this distinction that troubles me."

"Everything troubles you, old friend. I often think you worry too much," Philip chided the old Assamite as he stood and slowly walked toward the short hallway to Hassan's bedroom. He saw something unexpected hanging on the wall, and he decided he needed a closer look.

"I fear you worry too little," Hassan countered.

"Be that as it may, my one major concern about Yashida may soon work itself out," Philip said as he examined a faded map that had been set in a timeworn cypress frame. "Is that genuine?" he asked, surprised that Hassan would display anything at all that might give a hint as to the person inside. It stood out in sharp contrast to Philip's initial thoughts concerning Hassan's new furnishings.

"Of course it's genuine," Hassan said curtly. "I wouldn't bother with a reproduction."

"Portuguese, right?" Philip guessed, examining the map that showed most of Europe and the West African coast to the northern border of present-day South Africa."

"Yes."

"And is there a point?" Philip asked offhandedly.

"There may be a shockingly large world right there beyond our current knowledge," Hassan said with a smile. "And what might currently be just beyond our field of vision may change everything forever. It's a message you should bear in mind, old friend."

"Of course," Philip responded gruffly, turning to leave.

"What did you mean that your problem may work itself out?" Hassan suddenly asked.

"Ms. Marlowe," Philip explained. "As Erica Blackwell demonstrated during my time with K.T., companions are always such a distraction to the younger kindred… She's run off with an old friend to try to avenge herself on the Sabbat. I figure that course of action is likely to get her killed within the week, so happily enough Johnny Yashida won't present me with the same difficulties K.T. always did."

"It would seem that way."

"I'll let you know immediately if any problems arise," Philip told his friend.

"It would be unlike you to highlight your difficulties," Hassan said suspiciously. "What is it you're playing at, Philip?"

"Ms. Blackwell is the old friend with whom Ms. Marlowe ran off," Philip explained. Hassan was certain he could see the ghost of a wickedly pleased grin pass over Philip's lips, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

"What?"

"Erica Blackwell," Philip clarified needlessly. "She called Michelle and asked for help. Last I heard, Ms. Marlowe was headed for Florida… may be there by now, too. I'm not sure what Erica is up to, but I can only imagine that Michelle is looking for a fight. Young Gangrel who go looking for fights with Sabbat packs invariably end up dead, so my latest apprentice's companion will be nothing but a memory in the near future," Philip said cheerfully.

"And Erica is with her," Hassan muttered through gritted teeth, trying to keep an unexpected rage in check. "I would've appreciated you telling me this sooner, Philip."

"Hassan, really, I can't imagine Erica is going to do anything stupid," Philip answered. "She's been around the Sabbat enough to know what they can do. I have no doubt she'll be more prudent than Ms. Marlowe. After all, she's not the one looking to deal with post-traumatic stress by eviscerating a few Sabbat."

"Let me know as soon as you know anything," Hassan said, his voice taking on the tone of command he often used with his apprentice. Philip visibly fought back an inappropriate retort, and then smiled broadly.

"Of course, Hassan," he said pleasantly. "If you think it necessary. Although I would ask that if you decide for some reason Erica needs to be removed from the situation, please do not meddle with Ms. Marlowe. It's a small enough request." Hassan only nodded slightly, knowing better than to give Philip any verbal assurances.

**III**  
Michelle knocked lightly on the door to Room 117 at the Pensacola Holiday Inn. Several moments passed as she warily searched every shadow, wincing as she heard the rhythmic moaning and grunting emanating from Room 123 down the hall. _It's probably just a Navy guy and his girlfriend,_ she told herself, rationality dueling with her overdeveloped inner voice of fear, which was insisting that Room 123 held a woman who was being tortured. 

The door opened and Michelle gasped in surprise, immediately settling her eyes on Erica Blackwell's hands, making certain she was not holding any weapons. Once she was satisfied of her immediate safety, she turned her gaze toward the Ventrue's face. A crooked smile lent an uneasy air to Erica's expression.

"Come in," Erica said curtly. "I wasn't sure you'd really come down here."

"Me either," Michelle admitted as she closed the door behind her and leaned against the doorway. "But I had to do it."

"Let's get the serious shit out of the way first," Erica stated evenly, her tone sounding eerily like K.T.'s had every time he and Johnny sat down to go over a plan. "I called you because, quite frankly, I didn't know who else I could go to. Recently, my only real friend has been K.T. I'd prefer he not know what I'm doing, so I can't get help from him or any of his friends. Before I met him… well, I don't know how much you or Johnny already knows about me, but I ran with some bad people. I can't get help from them, either. Especially with this." Michelle nodded but remained silent, and Erica did an exemplary job of hiding her irritation. _This would be a lot easier if she would at least hint as to what she already knows, but of course she has to play the mercenary game as much as Johnny always does… as much as K.T. and I always do. What a pain in the ass._ "Thing is," Erica continued, "I used to run with the Sabbat." Michelle nodded again, and Erica was forced to wonder whether the Gangrel was completely unsurprised or just had one of the best poker faces on the planet. Silence reigned for several minutes, both women having learned the important law of nature that an unexpected break in a conversation, like a vacuum, needed to be filled. Michelle did not fall for the trick, though after a few minutes of waiting Erica out she finally grew bored.

"Fine, I guess I'll comment," she said, choosing her words and finally deciding that there was just no way to diplomatically ask whether Erica had completely left her old friends behind. _For all I know I'm her peace offering, her way back into the club,_ she told herself, the thought causing the hairs on the back of her head to stand back on end. _Oh shit, Michelle… Why couldn't that have occurred to you a little sooner? Like, maybe before you were alone with her in a small, enclosed space?_ "I guess what I really need to know is what the job is," Michelle said quickly, attempting to change the topic nonchalantly so that it would appear as if she was completely unconcerned with Erica's original loyalties. "You said on the phone there's the possibility of Sabbat involvement; now you also say you used to run with them. I can only imagine there must be a connection."

"The job description is a little vague," Erica replied, being every bit as careful as Michelle when it came to selecting her words. "There's a Sabbat guy I just saw in Miami, and it really freaked him out when I walked right up to him and said hi. He bolted out of town and I've been tracking him ever since. Right now he's three blocks away at the Best Western. I would like to have a few choice words with him, but he called in a few friends and I just don't have the firepower to take them all down."

"That's where I come in," Michelle surmised.

"Yup. The one we want is named Horatio; all the others can die as far as I'm concerned. I'm gonna take Horatio alive, and then I'm gonna conduct a nice little interrogation."

"Sounds simple enough."

"If all goes as planned, it should be," Erica agreed. "The big issue is whether or not you can do this."

"I see."

"Not to be a bitch, but I remember how you were at Disney. I'll admit that you were far tougher than I expected, but that was only when you weren't curled up in a fetal position in the midst of a panic attack. That shit happens this time, then at best I'm leaving you behind." She left unspoken what would happen at the worst, though Michelle was willing to hazard a few guesses.

"I understand." Part of Michelle wanted to smack Erica around the hotel room for her comment, but she also could not really blame her. _I'm broken, and Erica knows it. The fact that she even called me in shows how desperate she is for back-up, but she's also been around K.T. enough to know that desperate is not the same as stupid. She'll make use of me, but she won't take the effort to bail me out if things go wrong and it's my fault._

"So… can you do this?"

"We're gonna find out," Michelle replied uneasily. "I haven't seen much action since Disney; in fact, Johnny and all of his clanmates have pretty much been laying low since they fought off that invasion of State College. I haven't been put in a position where I've had to find out whether I made much progress in putting the past behind me. But I'm Gangrel, and you know K.T. well enough to know what that means. I'm ready to go out there and face my fears. If I can get past it, fine. If not… well, I'd rather be dead than start whimpering in a corner every time the shit hits the fan."

"Okay," Erica muttered uneasily. "I guess that's really all you can do, isn't it?"

"And I guess you're not in a position to go looking for anyone else, are you?" Michelle countered, voicing what she thought was already obvious.

"I suppose not. So you wanna get down to business?"

"Not yet," Michelle answered. "I saw a Wal-Mart when I was driving over here. Let me go over there to get some ammunition; if everything that could go wrong does go wrong – and it _always_ does, you know – there's no telling when I'll have another chance to stop for bullets. You need anything?"

"No, I went earlier tonight."

"Then give me an hour," Michelle told her, striding confidently until she reached the door, mustering the will to open the door into the night.

As Michelle left, Erica was forced to wonder whether she had done the right thing. _She's probably gonna get herself killed out here,_ she decided almost immediately. _I understand what she means, preferring death to living in fear. I've been there. But if she dies, I hope she's considerate enough to avoid taking me with her._

_……………………………_

"Wallowing much?" Michelle asked, startling Erica out of her train of thought. It was obvious that the Ventrue had not heard Michelle return from her short shopping trip. _Or maybe she didn't expect me to come back,_ Michelle decided, avoiding facing the fact that she had left half-planning just to take off into the night and not return. It had taken almost all of her will to buy her ammunition and actually go back to Erica's hotel room. _I guess that's victory #1 for the good guys._

"Huh?"

"The song," Michelle answered, gesturing toward the portable c.d. player resting on a bedside table. " 'Long, Long Time.' That has to be one of the most miserable songs out there. An unrequited love lost, or something… great lyrics, and the vocalization is perfect. One of my all time faves."

"I bet," Erica answered. "And how is Johnny, by the way?"

"Right about now I'm thinking he's pissed."

"You ran off without telling him?" Erica guessed, hardly able to believe it. She had always felt that Johnny and Michelle went together like bullets and guns; the thought of either one simply ditching the other without a damn good reason was unexpected. _Then again, maybe she thinks the same about me and K.T., and it's not like we're actually anything like that. At least not totally._

"It's not like he hasn't done the same thing to me from time to time," Michelle replied. "Besides, I think he could use some Johnny Time."

"Johnny Time?" Erica asked, hoping she would be able to suppress an inappropriately amused chuckle. "What exactly is Johnny Time?"

"Time to spend on his own, away from me and especially away from his clanmates," Michelle explained. "He hasn't been out on his own for years, now. Between jobs for his clan, time spent training his various childer, and time spent blowing shit up with K.T., he's sorta… I don't know… I think he's started to lose some of what he used to be. If that makes sense."

"Actually, it makes perfect sense. K.T.'s sorta the same way, though it's in his blood more, I think. You'd understand that better, though, being Gangrel and all."

"Yeah, I understand," Michelle agreed. "But back to business, huh? I need to know if you're already screwed," she said bluntly, not wanting to waste time talking when there was the possibility that armed Sabbat could burst through the door at any moment. "You told me you're tracking them. Do they know it? Are they setting a trap, or are they in any position to go on the offensive?"

"No, you're only here because I'm being careful," Erica assured her. "I didn't call you out of desperation… at least not totally. Like I already said, I'd prefer some back-up and you're the only one available."

"It's good to be wanted."

"Well, calling you was more a matter of being overly cautious than it was about getting someone to pull my fat outta the fire. If it was that bad, I would have called K.T., no matter what he would have said."

"You're sure?"

"I promise. I'm just trying out planning ahead for a change. I never get the chance when I'm with K.T., so I figured I'd see what it was like." Michelle smiled at that, and Erica continued. "The guy we're tracking – Horatio – is Toreador _antitribu_. His sister, Crystal, was a good friend of mine, so we hung out a bit. Helped that we were actually embraced within three months of each other, too. He ran with a pack that spent lots of time in the Bronx, so it's not like we saw each other all the time, but I probably saw him as much as I saw anyone outside my own pack." Erica stopped as a new thought occurred to her. "I know it's a bit late for this, but I expect you to hold this all in strict confidence."

"Of course," Michelle responded. "It's not like anyone I know would be interested in much of this, anyway. You can count on me to forget as soon as we're done with the job."

"Okay. Anyway, Horatio was probably at the Palla… at a big party that was going on around the time I left," Erica continued, trying to choose words that would both explain the situation and leave everything cloudy enough to keep Michelle in the dark. "There were things going on that I want to find out about, but as I'm pretty much a pariah for leaving New York in the company of a Gangrel mercenary, I can't just stroll into town and start chatting up the locals."

"I can see how that would be a problem," Michelle commented sarcastically. Erica gave her a withering stare, and Michelle let her continue.

"Here's the big trick, Michelle. He _cannot_ get too far north. If he even gets close to New York, we're gonna have to break off and let him go, because I'm not going anywhere near the Sabbat metroplex. Got it?"

"Sure. I guess we're gonna have to make sure he and his buddies never leave Pensacola."

"That's what I was hoping you'd say. Now all I guess we need to discuss is payment."

"Ah yes, that," Michelle replied with a grin. "If I risk my neck for you, will I get a chance to kill the Sabbat?" the Gangrel asked in a ruthlessly butchered Irish lilt as she mimicked Stephen, the Irishman in _Braveheart_.

"You bet your ass you will."

"Excellent! That's payment enough for me."

_To be continued………………………………_


	3. Chapter 2

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

…………………………………………………………

**Chapter 2**

**I**

"Ease up a little on the gas," Michelle suggested. Erica immediately complied, allowing a greater distance between the two kindred and the surviving Sabbat that they were following north. Their assault had gone disastrously wrong when three local kindred – Michelle guessed it was likely the sheriff and two 'deputies' – showed up just as Erica and Michelle opened fire. Predictably enough, they were immediately targeted as the aggressors and the Sabbat were able to slip away under cover of the sheriff's swift response.

Once Erica and Michelle evaded the locals and re-acquired the Sabbat – thanks to a GPS beacon Erica had attached to their vehicle – a new gunfight had erupted in the downtown area. Michelle knew for a fact that several humans had been gunned down in the crossfire, and she knew that meant she and Erica should hurry out of town just as quickly as the Sabbat. The confrontation had then spread north outside of the city until Erica and Michelle had fallen back, allowing their prey to pull ahead a little bit and think they had escaped.

"I'm gonna have to feed pretty soon," Erica commented.

"Me, too. And you can bet your ass those Sabbat are every bit as thirsty as we are."

"I think we would have had them if the sheriff hadn't been there."

"Me, too," Michele replied again. "We got two of them, though. That leaves four, right?"

"By my count," Erica answered. "But if we leave them alone they might figure out a place to go to hook up with some more reinforcements. If that happens…"

"It won't make any difference," Michelle said confidently. "As long as we can track them from a distance – and with all the nifty extra beacons you have we should be able to do just that –we're able to control the time and place that we hit them. I'm perfectly happy to pick them off one or two at a time."

"If they get enough people they'll eventually just stop and wait for us in force," Erica explained. "Horatio isn't the brightest bulb in the pack, but he's gotta know it was me behind that attack. The fact that they never got a good look at us really doesn't matter."

"Though it should keep them guessing as to how many of us there are. As long as they don't know there's only two of us we should be fine."

"And if they figure it out?"

"I'm trying to think of a place I could get a couple of sniper rifles," Michelle answered, surprised at how easily her mind was breaking down different tactical possibilities. _Hit and run, typical guerilla tactics,_ she thought happily. _If we can take one out and then get away before really getting hurt, we'll be okay. But she's right; eventually they'll make a stand if they get enough people. Guerilla tactics won't work against a foe that vastly outguns us, so we'll have to find some way to offset that advantage. The best way to do that is to have more advanced weapons at our disposal, and that means sniper rifles – their superior numbers won't mean shit if we can shoot them while staying out of range of their weapons._ The train of thought came so surprisingly easily that Michelle could not help but smile. _Being around the Telemon has started to rub off on me._

"Sniper rifles?" Erica asked. "That's gonna be a tough one… at least if you want anything military grade."

"I think we'll want to make sure we outrange any hunting rifles they could go and buy at Wal-Mart," Michelle answered. "Though maybe it won't come to that." _But if it does, I know a dealer in the general area,_ she reminded herself. _Carmen Exarchos does a lot of business with the Telemon, and she's not far away up in Tennessee. I'm sure she'd be happy to make a house call if the price is right._

"We've already lost the element of surprise," Erica pointed out, "and that was really the best thing we had working for us. Horatio called some friends, but I can't believe he expected me to actually show up and try to take him out. Next time they'll definitely be ready."

"So were the Templars at Acre," Michelle muttered.

"What? Templars!" Erica asked.

"Not in the Sabbat sense," Michelle said hurriedly. "Sorry 'bout that. I was talking about the Order of the Templars, the human knights who fought in the Crusades. Their last real battle was at Acre, where they drew a line in the sand and got wiped out."

"Well that wasn't very smart of them."

"It wasn't about being smart," Michelle answered. "It was about refusing to run, refusing to believe that it was better to survive if it meant they were sacrificing their beliefs and ideals just to tack on a few years in an otherwise inescapably finite lifespan."

"Sounds like a story you've taken to heart."

"That obvious, huh?" Michelle asked.

"Well, I've been wondering what got you down here for this job," Erica responded. "I guess deciding that it's time to make a stand, one way or another, is a better reason than most. You seemed fine out there, by the way."

"So far," Michelle answered, noting that she sounded far more confident than she was. She kept her concerns to herself, though. She never mentioned that she was certain she had been able to focus on the task at hand because the intensity of combat had demanded her full attention; the simple fact was that she did not have time to be scared of what was hiding in the shadows when several enemies outside of the shadows were shooting at her. _Besides, _she decided, _it wasn't like it was really all that dark out there. We were in the middle of Pensacola, and while that's hardly the Las Vegas Strip, it's also far from the inside of a Lasombra torture chamber._

"So you have any thoughts on what to do next?"

"Two choices, as I see it," Michelle answered. "We either jump them again, here and now, or we wait until we've had time to feed and recover our strength."

"And give them time to feed and recover _their_ strength," Erica surmised.

"They've gotta be as hungry and beat up as we are," Michelle reasoned. "We might be able to finish this all here and now if we make a move. But then again…"

"For all we know they had a supply of blood in one of their bags, and we'd be lucky to make it out alive."

"Yup," the Gangrel agreed. "Sounds like we just decided to hold tight and wait for our next opportunity."

"Guess so. You wanna look in the glove box and see if there's a map?" Erica suggested, hoping that Michelle had been lucky enough to steal the car of someone who hated getting lost.

"Lucky us," Michelle muttered a moment later, immediately unfolding a map of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. "I guess you want to know where we might be headed, huh?"

"You got it."

"Well hold on to your hat, because my best guess right now is Birmingham."

…………………………………………………………

**II**

"Not bad," Hassan commented as K.T. managed to parry every attack Hassan directed at him, the Assamite slicing through the air with his battle-worn scimitar, displaying the cool precision of a surgeon. K.T. took the compliment for what it was worth, which was little more than nothing. Hassan was employing only simple cuts and counter-attacks, and he was pointedly refraining from taking advantage of the supernatural speed he had developed over the centuries. This was only an early lesson in an education that would take decades.

"Thanks," K.T. muttered graciously, sheathing both of his kukri knives and shaking his arms. He had never thought it possible that his forearms could be both numb from exertion and shaking from the repeated, jarring impact of spending hours using two knives against a master swordsman wielding a scimitar. "We keep it up at this rate, and maybe in about twenty years I'll be able to take on two or maybe even three Sabbat at once."

"Such statements do you a great disservice," Hassan commented, stretching out his shoulders and triceps. "You may be overmatched for now while sparring me, but you have already learned a great deal. No Sabbat foot soldier would stand a chance against you, K.T., and you know that damned well. Once I'm done with you, even the bishops will know to give you a wide berth."

"Okay," the Gangrel answered, uncomfortable with the way the conversation was unfolding. Hassan had never gone out of his way to praise either his student's current prowess or his dedication in improving his skills; not that he belittled his charge, either. Hassan had always been as constant and predictable as gravity. Tonight the Gangrel sensed a palpable difference in his mentor, and it was starting to make him uneasy.

"You know why we spend all this time practicing with melee weapons, correct?"

"It gives an advantage against the younger kindred who only know how to point and shoot," K.T. answered. Hassan only shook his head sadly, clearly disappointed in his protégé's response. The Gangrel thought a bit more, but could not come up with anything else.

"The pop guns the younger kindred use will be of little import in some of your future encounters," Hassan assured K.T. "Most young mercenaries like yourself, especially those Telemon you have befriended, excel with these weapons – they have gained an advantage of sorts over their peers through a practiced mastery of modern arms. In a battle between six average Telemon and six average Sabbat, for instance, with all things being equal, I would take the Telemon any day of the week."

"Uh-huh."

"But do you have any idea what would happen to any three of those Telemon if they were cornered by an elder?"

"Probably something bad," K.T. responded, knowing his teacher wanted more but being afraid to specify anything else without having a good idea of how to answer properly.

"Yes, something bad," Hassan agreed, "though I would appreciate it more if you spoke your mind when I ask for an opinion. Even assuming they got off perfect shots, the Telemon would do little more than slow down an elder for a stride or two." Despite the confidence of Hassan's tone, K.T. felt the Assamite was inadvisably giving short shrift to the effectiveness of the phosphorous-tipped weapons he knew many younger kindred – especially the Telemon – employed on a widespread basis. "Then the elder would be upon the Telemon, or Sabbat, or whomever else the impudent fledglings were who thought it a good idea to challenge an elder," Hassan continued. "Without mastery of a hand-held weapon, the foolish neonates would be carved to pieces by an elder who learned to make war before gunpowder was even invented."

"I understand," K.T. said.

"Do you really?" Hassan asked. "Because you see, Mr. Corben, I'm training you to fight these very same elders." The Gangrel tried to hide his surprise but failed miserably. "Yes, there's little reason to spend time teaching you to kill Sabbat shock troops or Camarilla enforcers. You could already do that well enough on your own before meeting me. No, being part of the Hand means being able to enforce its will against centuries-old schemers and manipulators, and you'll need to be able to back up your position with the threat of force. That is not something you can do yet… though we're working to fix that."

"Okay."

"I'm telling you this because you have to _want_ to train with me," Hassan continued. "You never liked the position Philip placed you in, and I cannot blame you. I'm certain there were a couple of times there when part of you almost wanted to get gunned down and left for the sun, if for no other reason than it would have freed you from your would-be master.

"I expect that in some ways I will receive the same resentment," the Assamite admitted. "I will have you do things that you will no doubt prefer not to do. What I cannot have, however, is resentment. Resentment is a poison, a disease that will slowly take you over and prevent you from reaching your potential. You're Gangrel, and that means your blood imposes upon you an individuality and need for independence that I have never had before in an apprentice."

"You've never had a Gangrel apprentice?" K.T. asked, seizing the opportunity to ask a question that had been plaguing him ever since he had entered Hassan's tutelage.

"Only once before have I had an apprentice that was not my own childe," Hassan responded with a thin smile. "He was a Nosferatu, and he made a much better student than you do."

"Thanks," K.T. answered. "That's more of what I'm used to. All that complimentary back-slapping was making me wonder if I'd stepped onto the set of a Lifetime original."

"He also did not feel a need for sarcasm," Hassan added, though K.T. noted a flicker of a smile pass across his mentor's face. "You are probably wondering why I'm saying all this, and the answer is simple. As I said before, I need you to _want_ to train with me – nothing less will do."

"Well, it's a little hard to ever know for sure whether I'm here because I want to be or because I know you'll kill me if I try to leave," K.T. pointed out.

"Yes," Hassan admitted, "that much is true. And you are, of course, correct in assuming that I will kill you if you leave without my permission. However, I'm about to give you permission."

"Huh?" K.T. asked, a comical, dumbfounded expression on his face. He had been ordered to join his mentor for a six-month training session, and by his count he had two months remaining on his current commitment. The reason suddenly seemed obvious. "You have a job for me."

"Not precisely," Hassan answered. "I have an opportunity for you, one that Philip would never have allowed."

"You don't say," the Gangrel commented skeptically.

"I've received word that Erica may have gotten herself into trouble," Hassan explained. K.T. perked up at the mention of his companion. "I know what she means to you, and while part of me would understandably be content to have her removed from the equation, I also know that you would justifiably resent me if I ever concealed from you the fact that she was in danger. Such an action would breed anger and resentment."

"And we can't have that," K.T. chimed in.

"No, we can't," Hassan agreed. "So I'm releasing you for the time being. I'm told that she can be found in Florida, somewhere on the panhandle. Other than that I have no specifics. Be quick, K.T. Do what you have to do, and get back here."

"So I can go right now?" K.T. could hardly believe it was so simple.

"There are two conditions," Hassan quickly added.

"Of course there are."

"First, the two months you have remaining on this current training stint will now be increased to three, and I expect you back here as soon as you are assured of Ms. Blackwell's safety." K.T. nodded, not feeling as if that was too much to ask. "Second, my information indicates that Michelle Marlowe is with Erica."

"What?" K.T. asked in surprise. He stifled a plethora of curses that sprang to mind as soon as he started imaging the unending list of bad things that could happen if those two had started making a habit of spending time together.

"It appears that Ms. Marlowe has decided to avenge herself on the Sabbat," Hassan explained, putting his own spin on events in the Southeast. "Of course, you know exactly why she would want to do that. It seems that she called Erica for back-up, knowing that her companion would not approve of her current vacation plans."

"I can see how Johnny would have a problem with that."

"I know you and Yashida are friends and it was, in fact, your loyalty to him as a friend and fellow mercenary that resulted in me taking you on as an apprentice. This time, however, I'm specifically telling you to refrain from any action that may prolong Michelle Marlowe's life. She has to be left to fend for herself, and if her companion comes to bail her out, that's fine. But I cannot have her causing another distraction like this; if Michelle Marlowe is going to drag your companion out on a job every time you're in training, then it's best all around if she just dies right here and now. Her welfare is not our concern."

"I understand," K.T. grumbled; he could see Hassan's point – and he had to admit that it was somewhat reasonable – but that didn't make it any easier to stomach being told what to do and who to let die. "I'll go retrieve Erica, and I'll leave Michelle to whatever fate she's brought upon herself."

…………………………………………………………

**III**

"Johnny, hey… I wasn't sure you were gonna answer." Yashida was surprised to hear Brett Tailor's voice. He had not been expecting a call from anyone in his clan; and if he had been, he wouldn't have expected it to come from Brett.

"Why wouldn't I answer?" Johnny asked suspiciously. "I'm supposed to available 24/7 when I'm out in the field. Especially when I'm expecting to make contact with potential allies."

"Well…" Brett's voice trailed off, and Johnny's spidey-sense started tingling.

"What is it?"

"Where are you right now?" Brett asked hesitantly.

"Boise. You could have checked that at HQ, Brett. Why are you calling me?"

"Are you really in Boise, or is that just what you're telling me?" Johnny had no doubt now – Brett knew something important about something. The last thing Johnny wanted to do was play 20 Questions with one his clanmates at three in the morning.

"What's going on, Brett?" Johnny asked, getting directly to the point. "I'm in Boise. Does someone back there want me to call in on a landline so they can trace the call? Am I on double-secret probation or something?"

"No one else asked me to make this call," Brett responded. "It's just… Okay. Michelle is with you, right?"

"Huh?" Johnny's stomach lurched in the middle of an unexpected cartwheel, and he was certain that if he were mortal he would be on the verge of vomiting. "Is this something about Michelle?"

"So she's not with you," Brett surmised, speaking the words as a statement rather than as a question. "Here's the thing, Johnny. I heard something about an hour ago, and I've been debating whether to call anyone. It seems that there was a running gunfight in Pensacola sometime around midnight. A couple of Sabbat packs seemed to materialize from nowhere and started shooting up the place."

"How did you hear about this?"

"I'm at the compound in Panama City," Brett explained. "I have some new recruits down here, getting them ready for action in Boston later this year. Anyway, the prince called me right away and asked if I'd be ready to help defend the city, since that was part of the deal you made with her."

"And I assume you agreed," Johnny commented, though he really wanted to hear more about Pensacola.

"Of course. The clan always fulfills its obligations," Brett assured him. "The intel indicated that two female anarchs became embroiled in open urban warfare with every Sabbat for thirty miles in every direction. The Camarilla has a tenuous hold on all these crappy little Gulf Coast cities, so it immediately caught everyone's attention. The reason I'm calling is because one of the two anarchs fit Michelle's description to a T, right down to the ripped black jeans and the two Glocks she's been carrying around, trying to do her best impersonation of you doing your best impersonation of Chow Yun Fat."

"Oh hell…"

"I expected the other anarch to fit Uiko's description, or maybe Mel's, but it seems it was some woman with blonde hair cut at the shoulders."

"Just the two of them?"

"Yeah."

"No one else? No males?"

"No one, Johnny. I even asked the same question myself, because I expected you to be there, not in Idaho. Did Michelle run off?"

"She's Gangrel," Johnny began to explain, knowing that would mean even less to Brett than it did to him, "and they always go off and do their own thing once in a while. It's their way."

"Uh-huh."

"Wait a second, does anyone else know about this?"

"No, sir," Brett answered, suddenly sounding very official as he added 'sir' to his response. Johnny could not help but notice how strange it felt to be referred to as 'sir.'

"Any chance we could keep it that way?"

"Of course," Brett answered, surprising Johnny with how quickly he agreed. Johnny had not expected Brett to hold his tongue at all, and certainly not without a great deal of wrangling. He could not think of an answer, and it seemed Brett realized that. "I owe you for New Orleans, sir," Brett added. "There's no way in hell I get my current, cherry assignment without my success in the field; and there's no way I have that success without you kicking me in the ass a couple of times. You may be every bit the half-ass soldier everyone says," he commented, obviously mirthfully, "but half-ass is apparently enough to get me to look out for you the same way I always looked out for my squad mates back in the service. I assume you're gonna want to check this out."

"If I can figure out a way to con Siras into giving me another week's leave. I keep taking vacations like this, people are gonna start calling me Napoleon… and not just because I'm short," Yashida joked, knowing that the well-schooled field commander on the other end of the line would appreciate the joke about Napoleon Bonaparte's outlandishly extended leaves early in his military career.

"Hold on for about five minutes," Brett said. "I'll give you a call back." He hung up before Johnny could respond, leaving the clan's diplomat to stew.

_Could it really have been Michelle?_ he wondered. _Did she decide that getting her head screwed on straight meant looking for a fight with the Sabbat? Sure, she may be the type to convince herself that she would never be okay again until she got back out there and faced her fear, until she got back on the horse and became the person she used to be, but to go out there without telling me… that's just irresponsible. Even for her._

Johnny could have kicked himself for having been so relaxed about her disappearance the night before. It now seemed foolishly naïve to have been so concerned that she might be leaving him because of Uiko, or to guess that maybe she was planning on spending the day in a cave somewhere. _This is Michelle,_ he reminded himself. _No way in hell is this gonna be something so simple. 'Face my fears head on,' he remembered her writing. Why didn't I see this coming? How could I have been so stupid?_ "I should have gone after her as soon as the sun went down," he muttered, ignoring the fact that until Brett had called, he had no idea where to follow her.

"What the hell is she up to?" he asked the empty room. The question seemed to take on a life of its own as Johnny sat waiting for a return call. "Wait a second – exactly what _is_ she up to? This isn't the same Michelle I met all those years ago." The Telemon started to wonder whether that new thought should increase or decrease his concern. _Over the years we've been through a hell of a lot, and if Michelle has demonstrated only one area of growth, it's in her capacity to plan ahead. At first blush this seems like the kind of thing she'd do, just running off half-cocked trying to deal with something in the typical Gangrel way… whatever that is. But that's at first blush. That's not something she'd actually do… at least not anymore. This isn't the same girl I met years ago, the one who spent her time stealing police cars and driving them through shopping malls._ "She's up to something," he told the air around him. "Though it may be madness, yet there is method in it." _But what the hell _is_ the method to her madness?_

The phone rang, sharply cutting off Johnny's train of thought. He grabbed it almost immediately, a celerity-fueled blur of motion bringing the telephone receiver to his ear in a fraction of a second. "Yeah?"

"That's how you answer the phone now?" his caller asked. It was not Brett. "Just 'yeah?' I may have to rethink your assignment with the clan, Jonathan. That was less than diplomatic."

"Siras," Johnny almost gasped. "What… umm… why are you calling?"

"We may have a problem," the clan's founder explained. "I just got a call from Brett, and he told me something that, quite frankly, has me rather concerned."

"Oh really?" Johnny asked, his stomach once again lurching uncomfortably. He could not quite muster a feeling of betrayal, since he knew Brett had just been doing his duty by reporting to his superiors, but it still cut a little after having felt that he had received some sort of approval from one of the clan's officers.

"Yes," Siras confirmed. "He's in Panama City, at that compound you set up with your coterie. He said you guys did a nice job, by the way," he added, surprising Johnny with the unexpected compliment when Yashida had been expecting nothing but getting his ass chewed out for letting Michelle out of his sight again.

"Thank you, sir."

"Forget it. Look, I need to know how far along Uiko and Mel are," Siras continued.

"Sir?"

"Seems there was a bunch of Sabbat action in Pensacola earlier tonight. They started tearing up the town, and Brett wants to make certain he isn't about to find himself in a city right next door to the Sabbat's latest conquest. He's got a crew of raw recruits with him, Johnny; all of them have been embraced only within the past three months. I don't want them out there if they can avoid it, and he specifically requested that I send you to look into it."

"Why me?" Johnny asked dumbfoundedly, immediately regretting that he had spoken so quickly. Brett had done a fantastic job of setting up a situation that would get Johnny into position to go looking for his companion; the last thing he wanted was to say something that wasted a perfectly good lie.

"That was pretty much my reaction," Siras admitted, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his words may have caused offense. "But it seems that Brett gained a lot of respect for you during the New Orleans siege. He trusts you to find out whether or not this is the start of an actual siege, whether it was just a random pack that got caught passing through, or whether the locals are playing at politics amongst each other and blaming the violence on the Sabbat. Says if it turns out to be a siege, and if we're called in, he wants you and your team there to back up his fledglings."

"And what about my meetings here in Boise?" Johnny asked. He hated to bring it up, but the meetings were important. DuPree's abduction of Michelle had highlighted the fact that the Telemon had few contacts once they left the East Coast and were virtually unheard of west of the Mississippi. Johnny's job was diplomacy, and it was pretty hard to fulfill his duties if no one was willing to speak to him. He needed to make friends, and he felt it was a good idea to do so before the Sabbat was holding a gun to the locals' heads. He vastly preferred the idea of princes calling the Telemon because they knew and trusted them rather than because they had no other choice.

"The meetings will have to wait," Siras sighed. "I know why you wanted to do this, and it was a good idea, but I need you in Pensacola and Panama City right now."

"Let me leave Uiko here," Johnny suggested.

"You haven't released her yet," his sire reminded him. "I think it would look like a slap in the face if we leave an unreleased childe behind to shmooze the locals. Wouldn't really seem like we consider them worth our time or attention."

"Suddenly bailing during our 'Getting to Know You' trip isn't gonna be much better," Johnny argued, amazed that he was suddenly arguing against taking advantage of the opening Brett had provided him. _Is this what it's like to be responsible? I'm not entirely certain I like this at all._

"Not like we have much choice in the matter, Johnny. Going up there was a good idea, but our primary business has always been warfare against the Sabbat. We can't have anyone think that we passed on a fight because we wanted to play at politics like the Ventrue. How long you think it would be before someone called us to task on that?"

"I know, I know," Johnny admitted. "Although I think I have an idea," Yashida suddenly commented.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Trust me, I can fix this," Johnny assured the clan's commander in chief. "I'll head out for Pensacola first thing tomorrow night."

"Okay," Siras answered, a healthy dose of skepticism in his voice. He hated trusting Johnny, but despite the fact that he was a notoriously paranoid control freak, he also often hated knowing about the diplomat's plans in advance. Siras was a big fan of plausible deniability. "Get down there and figure out what you can. If there's a way to handle the Boise people, too, then do it."

_Two female anarchs,_ Johnny thought as soon as he hung up the phone with his sire. _One of them almost certainly Michelle, and the other one a young blonde. Gee, I wonder who it could possibly be,_ the Telemon mused. He dialed another number and waited for an answer.

"I'm not here. Leave a message," a gruff voice directed in the voicemail instructions.

"It's three-thirty a.m.," Johnny said cheerily. "Do you know where your Ventrue _antitribu_ is?"

…………………………………………………………

**IV**

"Now you're both sure you'll be able to handle this, right?" Johnny asked, confident that Melissa would be okay but holding a great deal of concern for Uiko.

"Absolutely," Mel assured him. Uiko remained silent, and when Johnny finally looked at her, she simply nodded. She was more nervous than he had ever seen her, and her anxiety only seemed heightened by the fact that she looked like a completely different person in her current attire.

The ninja had been ordered to forego her usual cargo pants or jeans in favor of a sleek black cocktail dress that somehow managed to seem formal and seductively trashy at the same time. It was a look that Johnny was certain very few women could ever manage. He stopped them only a dozen feet from the front gate, eliciting an uneasy stare from the sentries who were posted at the foot of Hamilton Everest's driveway.

"I'm serious," Johnny said. "You don't have to do this at all. I know I'm rushing you; I wanted to wait several more years before doing this. You're ready, but there's lots more to learn."

"You can feel the force, but you are not a Jedi yet," Mel muttered, cracking a characteristically ill-timed joke. Johnny simply glared at her for a moment, attributing her unusual outburst to tension. The ex-CIA assassin was far more nervous than she wanted to let on, and as usual that meant she was jokingly quoting movies left and right as a means of relieving her own anxiety.

"I'll be fine," Uiko finally said through gritted teeth. "I know you would not have asked this of me unless you felt I was ready. I trust your judgment; I only ask that you take me back as soon as you can so I can finish learning what I need to." The affection in her voice was completely unexpected and well out of character. Johnny hardly knew how to respond, though a voice in his head told him to take note of that tone in Uiko's voice, since it was the source of Michelle's insecurity for the past several years.

"Johnny Yashida," the Telemon announced as he walked the remaining feet to the gate. "These are my childer, Uiko Haraya and Melissa Johansson. I believe the prince is expecting us."

"Of course," the smaller of the two guards replied. He opened the gate and directed them to walk up the drive, making certain that they understood that they forfeited the right to safety if they strayed from the asphalt."

"Yes, stay on the path," Mel muttered under her breath, doing her best Eddie Murphy impression. Johnny noted Uiko's smile at the reference to _The Golden Child_ and felt relieved that maybe the anxiety the two fledglings were feeling was slowly starting to dissipate as they neared their goal.

Hamilton Everest, the Ventrue prince of Boise, met them in the foyer of his home. He was dressed casually, in a pair of navy blue Dockers and a khaki turtleneck, and he had the same broad smile Johnny had always seen. He had wondered many times whether the grin was an affectation, or whether Everest was actually the one and only prince in North America who was truly happy with his position.

"Mr. Yashida," he said with a firm handshake, "follow me into the parlor. I want you to see something." He led the way eagerly, his long strides denying the three kindred the chance to walk slowly and gawk at the expensive artwork that decorated the first floor of the prince's home. Johnny thought that very unlike a Ventrue.

They reached a large room decorated with furniture that Johnny was willing to swear came right from Ikea. Unlike the rest of the building, this room spoke of casual comfort rather than ostentatious overindulgence. _Again, a very uncharacteristic choice for a Ventrue; more so for a Ventrue prince._

"Look at this," the prince said proudly, a sweep of his hand indicating the largest plasma screen television Johnny had ever seen. It dominated the far wall and was at least eight feet across. "Isn't that a beaut? Got it special order from Japan."

"Yeah, that's uh… very big," Johnny agreed. He looked threateningly at Mel, making certain she didn't make any more unwarranted movie references. The last thing he needed was her doing her best Shrek impression and commenting that maybe the prince was trying to compensate for something.

"I know what you're thinking," Everest said. "You're surprised that I didn't bring you back here to show off a new Van Gogh or something. Yeah… I have all that Ventrue prince crap out there, but this room is where I like to spend my time. You're a straight shooter, and from what I've heard from a few contacts back east, your clan hates playing politics and partaking in all of our kind's endless game of amassing status symbols. So do I, actually, but the fact is that I'm insanely rich, and that means I get to lead. Doesn't mean I don't want a nice screen for my baseball and football games, though."

Johnny tried to suppress a smirk and failed miserably. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're not like any prince I've ever met." No sooner had he spoken the words than he wished he could take them back. _Goddamn it, that's just what he was waiting for. He was baiting me into speaking disrespectfully so he'd have an excuse to kick me out of the city._

"I hope I'm not like the other princes," Everest laughed, slapping Johnny on the back affably. "No reason I should be. Wanna know why?"

"Of course." Johnny thanked his lucky stars that he had not received a sharp rebuke even as he tried to figure out exactly where this conversation had veered into the Twilight Zone.

"It's because this is Boise, Idaho. There aren't any Sabbat for hundreds of miles, and they're not in any hurry to get here, either. Entering Boise means either flying into the airport – which as you know I have outrageously well guarded – or crossing miles upon miles of barren wilderness infested with some of the last truly wild garou in North America. In fact, garou are all I have to worry about, and they'd far prefer to spend their time going after Pentex than trying to thin out an already anorexic kindred population. Aren't many of us here, and our local Gangrel help keep the peace. Boise is an isolated piece of the past, probably more like it used to be before the Inquisition and the Sabbat. We mind our business, and everyone else mind's theirs. It's a very Midwestern way of doing things."

Johnny found it impossible to believe Boise was as idyllic as Everest claimed, but he had to admit that in his short time in the city he had been amazed at how clean everything was and how polite the people were. There were even a couple of moments where he had wondered if he had walked into an episode of _Twin Peaks_. "I like how different things are here," the Telemon commented, seizing upon a perfect opportunity to lead the discussion where he wanted it to go. He had a plane to catch in an hour and didn't want to spend time listening to the prince's tales of the not so Wild West. "In fact, the relative safety and security of this city has made me wonder if maybe you wouldn't mind granting me a small request."

"What's that?" Everest asked. There was a slight, wary glint of suspicion in the back of his steel blue eyes, but his smile never faded.

"An unexpected emergency has arisen and my sire has asked that I look into it," Johnny explained, "but to be honest I've really taken a liking to this city and I think I'd like to know more about it. So if it's okay with you, I would like to release my childe, Uiko, into your city to stay for a short while. My other childe, Melissa, will stay with her as her charge. Both are fully aware of their duties and responsibilities."

"So you mean to release Uiko from your protection and supervision?" Everest asked, his tone suddenly very serious. It was obvious he did not consider this a minor matter.

"That's correct."

"And Uiko," Everest asked, turning toward the ninja, "do you understand that this means you alone will be responsible for any violations of the Camarilla's Traditions or any defiance of my own edicts?"

"Yes," Uiko said simply.

"You further understand that you will no longer be granted the same leeway I would grant unreleased childer? You understand that in our laws you are now an adult?"

"Yes."

"And that Johnny's intercession will not carry the same weight that it did until this moment, and that he is now no longer responsible for your actions?"

"Yes."

"Well then welcome to the fold, Uiko," Everest said, his voice once again the pleasant, booming drawl that made Johnny think that the prince was the most friendly kindred he had ever met. "As for you, Mel," he continued, directing his attention to the remaining Telemon, "I expect you to behave yourself while your sire is away. And Uiko," he added, turning back to the just-released kindred, "don't forget that you'll answer for her behavior until Johnny comes back to take responsibility for her again. Not that he's completely off the hook if Mel goes and does something on your watch. If a ten-year-old kid burns down the house while a sixteen-year-old sibling is watching her, the parents don't get away without a share of the blame. You understand, Yashida?"

"Of course," Johnny answered. "Mel is still my childe, not Uiko's, and I will continue to answer for her transgressions, even if she's in Uiko's care."

"Well said," Everest responded with a smile. "Now how 'bout I show you how clear the picture is on this thing? You said you're a Dodgers fan, right Johnny?"

_To be continued………………………………………_


	4. Chapter 3

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

…………………………………………………………

**Chapter 3**

**I **

"I look absolutely ridiculous," K.T. grumbled as he checked his reflection in a storefront window.

"I don't know," Johnny quipped, "I think it's a good look for you. Sorta like Tom Hanks in Dragnet, when they go and rescue the virgin Connie Swail. Besides, it's not all that bad; at least we weren't able to find the goat leggings."

"I swear to God, someday I'm gonna hurt you."

"Hold that thought," Yashida muttered as they rounded a corner and started approaching the Hog's Breath Saloon. Far from trendy, the Hog's Breath was a place that the Navy's sailors referred to as a local bar; only the town's full-time residents drank there. From what Johnny had learned in a recent conversation in Panama City, the Hog's Breath was also an anarch bar. "So? They kindred?" he asked his friend, pointing to three large men standing outside.

"How the hell should I know?" K.T. asked. "I've told you before, I don't read auras," he explained, disavowing any claim to the skill that some kindred employed to identify other kindred, mages, werewolves, and sometimes used just to read the emotions of humans.

"I thought all Gangrel read auras," Johnny countered. "It's part of your whole heightened senses thing."

"That's exactly what you said last time, and I told you that despite what you may have heard, the Gangrel don't have a natural affinity for heightened senses."

"But you're the most animalistic of the clans," Johnny reasoned. "It makes no sense that you guys don't naturally have heightened senses."

"And it doesn't make any sense for you not to know this already, given the fact that your own damn companion is Gangrel," K.T. grumbled. "Do you ever pay attention?"

"To what?" Johnny asked, oblivious to the fact that he and K.T. had wandered into earshot of the bikers outside the bar. "Michelle has heightened senses. Maybe you were on the Gangrel short bus."

"You're an idiot."

"I agree," one of the bikers commented loudly.

"Oh, hey," K.T. said casually as he walked up to the trio of kindred standing next to their Harleys. One of them nodded, indicating that he was likely what amounted to being the leader. "You guys got a minute?" Johnny hoped that K.T. remembered that they had agreed not to start shooting unless they had to. He saw in K.T. the same intensity he knew he had displayed himself when he and K.T. had been tracking Michelle's abductors two years earlier. While Johnny had shown more restraint when it came to violence, that was borne as much out of necessity as it was self-control – the simple truth was that K.T. had a far greater talent for violence.

"We got eternity," the one who had nodded said. The man was short, standing eye to eye with Yashida at about five and a half feet, but he was far heavier than the slightly built half-Asian. A large beer gut hung out beneath a barrel chest that was covered by a wife-beater and a black leather vest. Faded, ripped blue jeans, heavily worn black biker boots, and a thick brown beard completed what Johnny thought was the very image of the stereotypical Hells Angel. "They call me Bruce," the man said. Johnny stifled a chuckle until he realized that the anarch had intended his introduction as an ice-breaking joke.

"I'm K.T., and this is Johnny," the Gangrel replied, deciding to use their real names in this conversation. He knew that his name might be recognized, and that that could play out as very good or very bad, but he was willing to take the chance. _Besides,_ he reasoned, _we're in disguise. They may never figure out that I'm a mercenary who's killed countless anarchs over the past few decades._

"Clan?"

"Gangrel," K.T. answered, knowing enough not to mention that Johnny was Telemon. He simply remained silent on Yashida's heritage and hoped that the three anarchs would make the assumption that K.T. was speaking for both of them. To his relief, they seemed to do just that.

"We're all Caitiff," Bruce explained, referring to himself and his friends as the clanless individuals many in the Camarilla considered the dregs of kindred society. "I can tell you're new in town… you didn't walk, did you?" he asked.

"Not all the way; we left our bikes at the edge of town," Johnny said quickly, seizing what he thought was a perfect opportunity to advance the conversation in the direction he wished. "Heard there was a huge gunfight last night, and neither of us was in a rush to get our wheels shot up."

"Oh," Bruce said simply. Yashida was afraid the anarch would leave it at that, but to the Telemon's relief he started up again. "That was a bitch of a thing, let me tell ya. We've heard a few rumors about that."

"Oh really?" K.T. asked. His question was answered by the unmistakable sound of two shotguns being pumped behind him.

"Yeah, really," Bruce said. "Allow me to introduce Sam and Billy the Geezer," he added, his eyes focusing on the two shotgun-toting kindred behind K.T. and Johnny.

"Hi Sam and Billy," Johnny said as amiably as he could. He was having a hard time deciding whether he was more concerned about being shot by what might prove to be dragon's breath rounds, or more pissed off by the delay this entire situation would undoubtedly cause. "And to think people make jokes about southern hospitality."

"As I was saying, we've heard a few rumors about that shoot-out last night," Bruce commented. "Seems our sheriff got himself one of the culprits, and it turns out the son of a bitch is Sabbat. So the rest of us are on the lookout; even got the okay on using a heavy hand with any unfamiliar faces."

"Lucky us," K.T. responded with a shrug. "Look, asshole, we just want to find out about the two girls involved in what went down. We think we know them from back in the day, and we're lookin' to help them out."

"Hopin' to lend assistance to a damsel in distress," Bruce said whimsically. "That's very noble, but you better not think I give a shit."

"So what happens now?" Johnny asked, knowing that sooner, rather than later, someone was going to notice two guys pointing shotguns at two other guys on a lit Pensacola street corner.

"I'm thinkin' we rough you up a little bit and let the sheriff decide what to do with you," Bruce said pleasantly. "Earn ourselves a nice big favor."

"So you're not interested in getting favors from us, instead?" Yashida asked.

"Not so much, no. Especially if you might be Sabbat."

"He thinks we might be Sabbat," Johnny said with a shrug and a sideways glance toward K.T. "Since the city isn't under siege as far as I know, that would make us pretty low-level, right?"

"Uh-huh," the Gangrel agreed.

"Little more than shock troops, even."

"If that," K.T. responded. "Hell, we must have just climbed out of our makeshift graves within the past week or so."

"So I guess that means we're at the mercy of these clowns," Yashida said sadly. "Then again…" Johnny's body was a blur as he dove left; two shotgun blasts went off a fraction of a second too late, and the Telemon was unscathed as he drew his Berettas and started firing at Sam and Billy the Geezer. It was all over seconds later.

Once Johnny had put his two targets down on the pavement, he turned to make certain that K.T. had been able to dodge the initial shotgun blasts and take care of Bruce and his two friends. One of the two caitiff had what appeared to be a kukri knife sticking out of the middle of his chest. The other one was struggling to reattach a severed right forearm, and Bruce was as still as a statue, a second kukri knife secure in K.T.'s clawed hand and held firmly at his throat. Johnny stood and walked over to his targets, taking their shotguns and motioning for them to put their hands over their heads.

"You know, we tried to be nice," he chided. "But no, you had to do things the hard way. Now look what happened."

"What do you want?" Bruce asked softly, any trace of his earlier arrogance having disappeared.

"We already told you," K.T. growled. "We just want to know where our friends are."

"Your friends, huh? How do we know you're not a couple of Sabbat looking to avenge a packmate or some shit like that?"

"You happen to know of any way we can convince this jackass we're not Sabbat?" Johnny asked his friend.

"We could leave him alive," K.T. suggested. "The Sabbat wouldn't do that."

"Works for me," the Telemon said. "Bruce, here's the deal. We're gonna leave now. Yup, we're just gonna walk away. I'm tempted to take him with us," the Telemon threatened, gesturing to the impaled anarch lying on the sidewalk, "but taking hostages is no way to build trust. So you're gonna tell us everything you know, and we'll leave you be."

"All I know is they went north," Bruce blurted out before even giving Yashida's proposition any serious thought. It appeared that K.T.'s blade was removing every bit of resistance the anarch might otherwise have felt.

"That's all you know?" Johnny said dubiously. "There's got to be more than that."

"Maybe there is," Bruce admitted. "I could find out. I could call you."

"How stupid do we look?" Johnny asked. Then he glanced briefly at K.T. "Okay, how stupid do _I _look?" That got a smile from the conscious anarchs, and K.T. eased up a bit with the knife. Police sirens started growing louder, responding to the shooting, and the Telemon knew time was growing short. "Here's my number," Yashida said, pulling out a card and giving it to Bruce. "Find out what you can and call me."

"You can't be serious," K.T. said dumbfoundedly. "These yahoos aren't gonna call us."

"Yes they will," Johnny said confidently, seeing fear deep in Bruce's eyes. "Because while I can't see myself ever bothering to come back here, I'm pretty sure you'd be rather upset if they don't fulfill their obligation. Right K.T.?"

"Yeah, I'd be pretty ticked."

"And you don't want that, do you Bruce?"

"No."

"So we're gonna go now, and Bruce is gonna call us. Because otherwise, someday he'll get a return visit. Maybe not next week, maybe not even next year, but eventually it'll happen. And I know Bruce realizes he can't keep his guard up forever."

"Yeah, that's right," Bruce admitted weakly.

"So let's go, K.T. Maybe we can make up some time while our new friends find out what they can."

…………………………………………………………

**II**

_Am I doing the right thing?_ Erica asked herself as she remained crouched beneath a truck trailer, waiting for Michelle to complete her search of the rooms in the Hideaway Motel, just off the interstate in Birmingham. The Sabbat had happened upon a room full of college students and taken care of business there, killing all five of the teens and recovering most of their strength. _They probably think they lost us,_ Erica decided, trying to push her concerns from her mind. _They're sated, their wounds are healed, and those teens had been drinking and smoking, so they'll be a little lightheaded from the blood. That along with the food coma…_

The Ventrue _antitribu_ lost her train of thought as soon as she heard a motorcycle pull out of a gas station half a block away. The sound reminded her of K.T., and she immediately started worrying about what he would say if she succeeded in finding out what had really happened in Manhattan. _He said things would be bad, that the only way he could keep me safe was to let my memories be altered._ "Wait a second," Erica suddenly murmured. _Why the hell didn't I ever-_

"Okay, hit 'em hard and fast," Michelle whispered, startling Erica out of her train of thought as she joined the Ventrue antitribu in her hiding spot. The Gangrel was not an experienced soldier, but she remembered seeing how such shock tactics had always served the Telemon so well over the years. _Just like the Navy Seals,_ she reflected, knowing that it was the Seals' tactics of initially overwhelming a target and giving the impression of greater numbers that had seen Johnny and his clanmates through countless firefights.

"So not like last time," Erica muttered, knowing it was her fault that the pair had failed to secure their target in Pensacola. While she and Michelle had encountered terrible luck in timing their assault with the rounds of the town's sheriff, they had still had a chance of capturing Horatio when Michelle had audaciously turned her two MAC-10's on the locals to hold them at bay while Erica went it alone against the Sabbat. For the briefest of moments Erica had thought they would succeed and escape unscathed; as it turned out, they did neither of those things. Horatio and all but one of his friends had slipped away, and both Erica and Michelle took several wounds escaping the sheriff, tracking down the Sabbat, engaging in a second gunfight that left one of their targets dead, and finally high-tailing it out of Pensacola while their heads were still on their shoulders.

_But at least the sheriff got one of those Sabbat, too,_ Erica remembered, agreeing with Michelle's analysis of the value of that one stroke of good luck. The Pensacola kindred would interrogate their prisoner, discover he was Sabbat, and might be more forgiving of Erica and Michelle's disregard for the Masquerade if their actions were taken as an attempt to kill Sabbat interlopers.

"Okay, see the white Eclipse four blocks down?" Michelle asked, pointing down the dimly lit street.

"No," Erica grumbled. "I don't have heightened senses, okay?"

"It was just asking a question. Jeez…" Michelle countered. "Take my word for it – there's a white Eclipse four blocks down. If our target runs in that direction, we'll meet up there and continue the pursuit."

"And hope they keep using the same car," Erica put in, knowing that they had had a huge stroke of luck when they were able to tag a beacon on Horatio's vehicle. If the Sabbat commandeered another car, they would only need to get out of sight to be all but guaranteed of reaching safety.

"Just make sure we make our shots count. If we hit them, they'll slow down. If they slow down, we'll be able to keep up whether they keep using that old T-Bird or whether they car-jack something different."

"Fine."

"And if you get in trouble, come back here," Michelle added.

"And if _you_ get in trouble?" Erica asked.

"I thought we established early on that you're more than willing to leave me behind," the Gangrel responded with a smirk that hid her anger.

"Yeah, well… thing is, you're way better at stealing cars," Erica admitted. "And after that shootout in Pensacola, well…"

"Okay," Michelle said, the smirk morphing into a satisfied grin. _After the shootout in Pensacola… Yup, we're in it again; and like Johnny says, you never look at the person next to you quite the same way after someone's shot at the both of you. It's a great bonding experience._ Michelle knew that despite Erica's earlier statements, she now saw the Gangrel as her partner. Unlike in Disney, this time they were in it because they chose to be, and that made the comradery that much more evident. "So let's kick these guys' asses and maybe get some ice cream or something."

"I guess it's as good a plan as any… or at least as good as anything K.T. ever came up with, anyway."

…………………………………………………………

**III**

"It's Birmingham," Johnny told K.T. as he folded up his cell phone and put it back in his pocket, trying to hide his surprise that Bruce appeared to have come through for them. The Gangrel wasted no time opening the glove compartment and looking for a map, and within moments he had figured out a new route.

"We're gonna want to take an exit in about ten miles or so," he said. Despite the fact that he appeared to have settled on the most direct route to Birmingham, his eyes continued to pore over the map.

"So… what have you been up to?" Johnny asked amiably, his eyes never straying from the road as he weaved through traffic at 110 miles per hour. He knew he ran the risk of getting pulled over, but that was nothing a little mind control couldn't fix. He had always felt that one of the greatest perks of being kindred was the fact that he had not received a speeding ticket in over twenty-five years.

"A little of this, a little of that," K.T. responded with the expected degree of ambiguity, finally folding up the map. "You?"

"Funny… I've been doing the exact same thing," the Telemon replied. "After what happened a year or so ago, though, it's been a welcome change to do a little of this and a little of that. Hope you got yourself some work when my clan pulled back a little to lick our wounds."

"Short stint in Savannah, but that didn't last long," the Gangrel said. "Also did a job for some Toreador musicians in Seattle. Spent most of my time chilling out and seeing if I could pick up anything new."

"Didn't figure out a way to tag kindred like they always do with animals in those National Geographic specials, did you? Because I gotta say that situations like this illustrate just how useful that could be." K.T. smiled at that, but did not offer a response. Silence reigned for almost a half hour as Johnny continued to speed along, blowing past the other vehicles as if they were sitting still, pushing his borrowed Passat W8 to the limit. K.T. never even bothered to speak his directions, instead pointing at various signs as Johnny took the car from one highway to the next, confident in the Gangrel's navigation skills.

"You don't expect to find them in Birmingham, do you?" K.T. finally asked.

"I'd like to think it would be that easy, but I can't believe it ever would be," Yashida answered. "I half-expect to find the city in flames when we get there. Of course, if they aren't there, and if they've continued north…"

"I know," K.T. muttered, realizing just as well as Johnny did that if Erica and Michelle kept driving north from Birmingham, they would soon arrive in Tennessee. _And while that might seem like an attractive idea to Michelle, especially if she's totally lost it and is looking to take down Herrera, Erica won't have any idea what she's in for. Michelle is gonna get her killed._

"What if there's something we're missing?" Johnny asked, seeming to K.T. as if he was grasping at straws, desperately hoping against hope that his companion had not completely snapped.

"What could we be missing?" the Gangrel responded. "We know what happened to Michelle, and we know she's headed directly north toward Tennessee. This isn't exactly rocket surgery."

"Rocket surgery?"

"Well, people always either say it isn't rocket science, or brain surgery. But think about it – rocket science is pretty much theoretical, so that's no biggie; brain surgery is tough, sure, but brains don't explode if you accidentally cut the wrong wire. Combine the two and you get something that's extremely difficult and also life threatening."

"Don't take this wrong way, K.T., but sometimes I think you're the dumbest person I know."

"This coming from a guy who was disappointed we couldn't get our hands on goat leggings for our disguises in Pensacola," K.T. replied.

"Make as many comments as you want, but I know you woulda been down with that," Yashida joked, seizing the opportunity to put off his concerns about Michelle for just a few moments as he partook in some needed levity. "I mean, I knew this one Gangrel who had two little goat horns on his head and a poofy rabbit tail on his ass. Of course, they don't make human pants with room for a cotton-tail, so he always looked like he'd shit himself… poor guy never escaped the teasing."

"Bob Mortimer," K.T. said. "Yeah, I know him. You're right – he's one sorry son of a bitch. Nice guy, though. Especially for someone who's had to deal with being called the horny Easter Bunny for the past forty years."

"See, that's what I'm saying," Yashida continued. "You Gangrel have a habit of occasionally developing permanent animal characteristics when you wig out, and thus far you've escaped that. Unless, of course, you're hiding a poofy tail somewhere. What harm would goat leggings really have been in the whole scheme of things?"

"You know, Johnny, this is a conversation that can only end in a gunshot."

"Fine," the Telemon groused. "Seriously, though – what if we have this wrong, somehow?" The suddenness with which he returned to his earlier line of thought would have shocked K.T. if he had not already been used to Johnny's mental tangents.

"You mean what if the two of them are up to something other than the obvious?" the mercenary asked without missing a beat.

"Yup."

"Then we have no idea what it is," the Gangrel concluded. "Why else would Michelle have come out here?"

"What if Erica is the one who planned this?" Johnny asked. "You two have done a lot of jobs; some of it was against the Sabbat, and I know of at least one where you worked alongside the Sabbat. Any chance Erica has a grudge or two of her own to settle?" Johnny left his largest suspicions unspoken, but K.T's reaction spoke volumes. If Johnny had not already known about Erica's past with the Sabbat, he was certain K.T's body language would have revealed that little secret clearly enough. _There's definitely something about that suggestion that has him nervous. There's something he's not saying, something else that I just don't know yet…_

"Look, whether it's something Michelle is up to, or whether it's Erica calling the shots and it has nothing to do with Herrera, that would be something we'd know nothing about. We've been lucky as it is, managing to keep up with them."

"Not like they've been discrete or anything, K.T."

"No, but you know what I mean. We're maybe six to ten hours behind them, and the only way we have a chance of getting ahead of them is figuring out what they're up to. We can either assume the obvious, or else pull out a Ouija board and start looking for answers from the spirit world."

"Fair enough," Johnny answered. "But let me know if anything else occurs to you."

_To be continued………………………………………_


	5. Chapter 4

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

…………………………………………………………

**Chapter 4**

**I **

"Hey, jailer, do I get my phone call or not!" Michelle screamed out, drawing stares from the other women in her cell. _Goddamn tank,_ she cursed silently. She thought it was bad enough that she had managed to get gang-tackled by police, tasered, handcuffed, Mirandized, photographed in her first mug shot, and even fingerprinted by some twit who she guessed was incapable of managing a paper route, to say nothing of being able to competently book a suspect. But being thrown into the tank with a bunch of prostitutes, drunken and surly housewives, and a woman who looked like she was long overdue for a casting call for CSI: Skid Row was the final straw.

"Keep talking, fish," a large, she-man cop growled at her. The cop seemed like she was about to add something else, but then made a big point about turning and walking away, doubtlessly confident that Michelle's cellmates would instruct her in the finer points of jailhouse propriety.

"You can sit down and shut up now, bitch," one of the prostitutes drawled from a bench in the corner. "No one here is impressed."

"So I guess that means you're not gonna give me that student discount?" Michelle guessed sarcastically. She thought the woman might stand and make something of her comment, but she instead gave a satisfied chuckle and fell silent.

Feeling she must have just passed some type of test, Michelle boldly started calling out to the guards who were just out of sight behind the door to the booking area. "Seriously guys, I'd like to make a phone call," she yelled as calmly as she could. Then, turning back to her cellmates, she asked, "Anyone here know what time it is?"

"Probably getting close to four," another prostitute commented. "Why, you got a hot date?"

"Real hot… and I'm not gonna have much of anything if I don't get my goddamn phone call soon." Michelle started padding from one side of the cage to the other, oblivious to how quickly her cellmates cleared out of her path. _Sun's gonna be up soon,_ she reminded herself needlessly. _If I'm still in here, I'm screwed. How the hell did it even come to this?_

She thought back to the quick assault she and Erica had launched on Horatio and his posse. _We should have known from the get-go that it was a trap,_ she thought angrily, wondering if Johnny or any of his clanmates would have ever been so stupid. _I thought I was becoming such the bad-ass strategist, but I'm really still the same old careless girl I always was. If Johnny ever finds out I walked into something so obvious…_

She tried to turn away from the memories but failed miserably. No matter how hard she tried, she could not avoid thinking about her and Erica walking right into the motel courtyard, oblivious to the fact that they were sitting ducks to the Sabbat watching from the balconies above. _The gunfire was bad enough, but when they started lobbing Molotov cocktails…_

Erica had predictably freaked out and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction, but Michelle had held her ground. _Actually, that's sorta weird,_ she decided, wondering why the Rottschreck had not affected her as much as it had the last time she had been faced with fire. _Maybe it's some sort of wacky side effect of my fear of the dark; maybe fire – a source of light – doesn't cause the same kind of primal terror it used to._

"Take another step near me and I tear your goddamn ears off," Michelle growled, noticing one of her cellmates slowly shuffling toward her while she thought the Gangrel was distracted with her own thoughts. The other woman immediately started moving in the opposite direction just as slowly and subtlely.

_Wow, I think I just made my first jailhouse bitch. This whole prison thing might not be so tough after all._ "What time is it now?" she asked everyone and no one.

"About five minutes later than the last time you asked us, cupcake," a fat woman in the corner answered. "You maybe want to sit down and shut up now?"

"How does this work?" Michelle asked, turning to the motley crew of women behind her. "They take us before a judge at some point?"

"Yeah, usually first thing in the morning," an old prostitute responded. "Though I'm pretty sure I heard the J.P. already called in sick or something. Sounds like we'll have to wait until after lunch."

"After lunch?" Michelle asked, feeling about as sick as she ever had since the embrace. "So, like, we're gonna leave and go somewhere else?"

"The courthouse a few blocks away."

"Supposed to be sunny tomorrow, right?"

"Do I look like the fucking weathergirl to you?" the woman barked sarcastically.

"It's gonna be sunny," Michelle muttered. "I'm so screwed…"

…………………………………………………………

**II**

"Any idea where we can find out about recent goings-on?" K.T. asked, vaguely remembering Johnny mentioning once that he had a particularly unpleasant visit to Richmond several years earlier.

"Not a clue," Johnny admitted. "I didn't exactly spend much time in town during my last visit. We could try finding some anarchs again, I suppose, but from what we heard a bunch of mortals were killed this time."

"And that means the powers that be had to have gotten involved."

"Gotta protect the Masquerade at all costs," Johnny agreed. "So we might do better by heading to Elysium somewhere."

"Wherever that is."

"That also means we're gonna have to present ourselves."

"Huh?"

"We have to present ourselves to the prince," Johnny explained. "I know you know about that particular Tradition."

"We don't have time for that bullshit."

"And it's only gonna take us longer if we walk into Elysium and someone stakes us because we're wandering about without having been granted entry," Johnny reasoned. "There are plenty of people who take the Traditions seriously, especially in a town like this, so close to Sabbat strongholds."

"And plenty more who'd just like to get their nuts off staking a couple of visitors," K.T. responded dryly. "Doesn't exactly make one feel welcome."

"Virginia is for lovers, not for gun-toting mercenaries tracking down their trigger-happy, blood-bound companions," Yashida replied.

"Although as possible slogans go, that _does_ have a nice ring to it."

"But it wouldn't fit on a license plate."

"True. Fine, presenting ourselves it is. You happen to know where the prince hangs out in this town?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

………………………

"That's not exactly the kind of place I had in mind," K.T. commented, glancing down the block at the Legend Brewing Company. The building itself was well maintained, though the local atmosphere left a great deal to be desired. Rather than the buildings creating the bad impression, it was the people. Johnny noticed that the assortment of bikers and leather-wearing street-toughs just didn't seem to belong.

"You ready?" the Telemon asked.

"You're sure he's there, right?"

"Absolutely," Yashida assured his friend. "The one and only problem is going to be figuring out who he is."

"I thought you said you've seen him before."

"That's the thing," Johnny answered hesitantly. "The prince – he goes by the name Clovis, by the way – is a Brujah. He happens to be a master of disguise and has a habit of changing his appearance – both cosmetically and through the use of Obfuscate," the Telemon explained, referring to the set of vampiric skills that included the ability to alter one's apparent appearance. "He looks different every night so that the Sabbat has a harder time identifying him and taking him out."

"That's actually not a bad strategy," K.T. admitted.

"Yeah, but it causes a bit of a problem."

"Of course it does," the Gangrel muttered. "I'm with you, so there will _always_ be problems. It'll never be easy and straightforward, will it?"

"There was that one time in Tuscaloosa," Johnny pointed out. "We managed to get into town, meet the prince, and leave without being shot."

"That hardly counts," K.T. responded without missing a beat. "We got there separately and weren't in the middle of one of these stupid jams we always seem to get into."

"A valid point," Johnny admitted. "Anyway, like I was saying, Clovis's habits cause a problem. See, he's a stickler for the rules, but since he's a Brujah there has to be a chaotic spin on the way he's a stickler; his position is that all bets are off on a visitor until the kindred presents himself."

"Don't even say it," the Gangrel warned, already knowing exactly where Johnny was headed.

"So you see, the Brujah that are screwing around right outside the door-"

"Have free reign to beat the hell out of us in an attempt to stop us from reaching the prince," K.T. grumbled.

"They call it running the gauntlet," Johnny explained, surprised that K.T. had never heard of Richmond's major kindred tourist attraction. "Occasionally it gets a bit rough, and that's what keeps the anarchs coming into town. Also, as a side note, it's an incredibly devious way of getting them to show up at Elysium to present themselves."

"Huh?"

"You seriously haven't heard about any of this?" Johnny asked. "You who seem to embrace the rough and tumble aspect of our lives?"

"I don't hang much with anarchs," K.T. pointed out. "Fact is, most of them can't come close to affording to pay me, and since I'm frequently hired to wipe them out in large numbers I don't see much of a point in making friends."

"Okay," Yashida shrugged. "Then I'll give you the whole 4-1-1. East Coast anarchs are sorta migratory, as you know. A good many of them travel south for the winter, since our bodies generally take on the ambient temperature and freezing solid when going out for a meal isn't exactly fun."

"Doesn't help that fewer people are out on the streets when it gets cold, too."

"Exactly," Johnny agreed. "Anyway, Richmond is in a fairly good region, never getting as cold in the winter as it does just a bit farther north, but rarely getting too hot and steamy, either. Plus, this place is a major rest stop for lots of north-to-south travelers. This is an inevitable hotspot for anarch activity, and the prince knows he can't avoid it. He also knows that the Sabbat is knocking on his door on a regular basis. So he arranged his edicts in such a way as to encourage anarch visitation."

"Well that's different," K.T. commented.

"He needs soldiers, and the anarchs provide that. Clovis has made parts of Richmond – including the street right outside the city's main Elysium – into an anarch playground. There's a sort of tacit understanding that the anarchs will at the very least hint at possible Sabbat incursions, and since many of them have started to call Richmond home, the local non-Sabbat population has grown to a level that holds the Sabbat at bay."

"Except there's no telling if the anarchs will actually stay and fight against a siege," the Gangrel reasoned.

"But why take the time to assemble war parties to test Richmond's defenses and find out just how committed to the city the anarchs are when there are other, more vulnerable cities not far away?" Johnny asked.

"Sure," K.T. said, fully appreciating Clovis's unconventional strategy. Makes complete sense as long as you're willing to have a few dozen uncontrollable, gun-toting neonates wandering around your city."

"I guess he feels avoiding the alternative of falling to the Sabbat is worth the anarch headaches. Besides, he _is_ Brujah," Johnny added. "Fact is, Clovis used to be an anarch, and he understands the one immutable rule of being an anarch."

"Which is?" K.T. asked curiously.

"They never stay anarchs," Johnny answered, "and they almost always come back home to the Camarilla. The ones that survive long enough may play the hell-raising wanderer game for a while, but eventually they get tired of dodging Sabbat packs, Camarilla enforcers, rival anarch gangs, and the occasional garou ambush out on the more remote stretches of road that they travel. Live long enough, and you'll want a bit of security. Clovis reached that point, though I guess he likes being reminded of his rabble-rousing roots."

"Just the type of guy to put in charge of a strategically important city," K.T. said sarcastically. "And to think sometimes I actually wonder how the Camarilla is losing its war."

"Let's forget about all that crap," Yashida muttered. "You got any ideas of how we might be able to make it in there without getting pummeled too badly?"

"I was planning on shooting a bunch of them and just kicking the crap out of the rest," K.T. responded. "What more is there?"

"Well, let's just say that one of us – and I'm not mentioning names, but this would be me – isn't quite as able to shrug off getting shot at point blank range."

"You're faster than any of them," K.T. reasoned. "Just shoot them first and you won't have a problem."

"That's the best advice you can give?" Johnny asked with a laugh. "How in hell did you survive so long?"

"What, you got a better idea?"

"I was thinking we hotwire that garbage truck over there," Johnny said, pointing down a side street. "Then we drive up in that, letting the truck take most of the bullets, and we walk in relatively unscathed."

"I prefer my plan."

"Well how about you do it your way, and I'll do it mine?" Johnny suggested.

"Fine," K.T. answered, stepping off of his Harley and striding confidently down the street.

"Just remember not to kill any of them," Johnny reminded his friend as he got off his Kawasaki and ran over to the garbage truck. "Fighting is one thing, killing is something else entirely."

"Don't worry," K.T. answered. Johnny was certain his friend had added something else, but his words were drowned out by the thunderous report of his Ruger Redhawk.

………………………

"Would you prefer to clean up before we begin the formalities?" Clovis asked, his eyes focused on K.T. The mercenary's customary brown duster contained over a dozen fresh holes, and his faded blue jeans were little better off. Johnny was reminded of comic book characters after epic battles, their costumes all but shredded, the burned, bloodstained tatters barely concealing strategic areas of the body while exposing scrapes, bruises, and sometimes open wounds.

"No, I'm fine," the Gangrel assured the prince. Clovis appeared to be a twenty-something college student, replete with a Richmond Spiders sweatshirt. His bodyguards, three of them seated at the table with him, looked like the prince's pledge brothers. All were in blue jeans and an assortment of sweatshirts and professional sports jerseys.

"And I suppose you're the one who borrowed the garbage truck," Clovis commented, looking at Johnny.

"Yup."

"I would ordinarily congratulate you for making it inside in such better shape than your sidekick, but given the fact that you rolled the truck and spilled tons of municipal waste on the sidewalk outside, I'm going to have to ask that next time you simply sacrifice a small piece of your wardrobe like your friend here." Johnny had barely succeeded in stifling his smile, but then he saw K.T.'s grin. That put him over the edge, and he ended up chuckling in the face of the prince's half-hearted rebuke.

"It _is_ a bit funny, isn't it?" Clovis admitted.

"More fun than funny, I think," Johnny replied. "Fact is, though, that we're here to ask for information, if you have any."

"Really?"

"We've just come up from Pensacola," Johnny said, making certain he kept his story as ambiguous as possible. He knew that Clovis was notoriously uninterested in the games and manipulations of some of his peers, and while that was certain to end in him losing Richmond someday, it was also useful in avoiding getting the third degree himself while digging for info from the prince. "There were some kindred-related shootings there three nights ago, and we think we've been able to track the perpetrators in this direction. We're pretty sure the same ones who shot up Pensacola are the ones that caused so much havoc here last night."

"And?" Clovis asked, sounding both curious and indifferently disinterested at the same time.

"And we're wondering if you could tell us anything useful," K.T. put in, eliciting a roll of the eyes from his friend. "We're on a bit of a timetable here, too, so we would appreciate it if you don't keep us waiting."

"I see," Clovis said, obviously working at restraining himself from ripping off K.T.'s head. "And in Pensacola, do you usually speak this way to the prince?"

"I'm not _from_ Pensacola," K.T. grumbled, making Yashida want to put a bullet in each of the Gangrel's kneecaps. "I'm looking for a friend who's started tracking a Sabbat pack on her own."

"What?" Clovis's eyes had gone wide at K.T.'s words, and Johnny found it impossible to guess what Richmond's prince was thinking.

"Look, I've known guys like you over the years," the Gangrel explained, "though none of them have been princes. You're a toughguy who hates bullshit, so let's dispense with that. My buddy here has a friend who went off on a Sabbat killing spree lately, and while I'm not one to step in the way of someone having a good time, the fact is that his friend got a friend of mine to go along for the ride. One of them's liable to get her head taken off sooner or later, and I'm not in the mood for dealing with that."

"And what do you want of me?" the prince asked. "Please understand that I'm not too inclined to do anything to help the friend of two kindred who managed to get a dozen humans shot – two of them fatally – by stray bullets at a motel shootout. And as if that weren't the worst of it, one of them was arrested; of course, as luck would have it the normal J.P. was sick so they were going to arraign the night's suspects at noon. As you can imagine, I had the District Attorney up at three-thirty in the morning, pulling strings to make sure a half-comatose defendant wouldn't burst into flames while half the court staff is watching on the courthouse's front steps during lunch hour.

"Not that any of my concern and preparation was necessary, though. The second one apparently made a bomb and blew out one of the walls at the police station. Lucky she didn't do that during a shift change, or else I'd probably have a handful of dead cops to cover up. As it is, two are injured, one badly enough that he'll probably get early retirement. Your little friends got away, though."

"Which one was arrested?" K.T. asked evenly.

"The brunette," Clovis answered. "She was tackled by two officers responding to the shooting, and then held down long enough for several other officers to assist and overpower her. Too bad they didn't shoot her; at least that way she could have played dead and just walked out of the morgue quietly like we ask the anarchs to."

"So the blonde made the bomb?" the Gangrel asked, unable to hide his surprise. He had no idea where Erica had learned about explosives, but he made a mental note to find out.

"Blonde bombshell," one of Clovis's bodyguards laughed. The prince directed a scathing look at his guard, and the larger man sat back and seemed concertedly disinterested in the rest of the conversation.

"You wanna skip the bullshit, right?" Clovis asked. "I can do that. If the gang these two were shooting at were really Sabbat, then they've bought themselves a 'Get Out of the Bonfire Free' Card. Just because they aren't gonna be sentenced to death doesn't mean they just walk, though, either. If you find them, I want them back here."

"Oh really?" K.T. asked, his tone sarcastically indicating that he was interested in hearing how the prince thought he was going to enforce that particular edict.

"I want to know what they were doing in my city, and I want to know who these Sabbat were that they were chasing. I also want reparations."

"So that's what it's really about," Johnny commented, finally joining the conversation when he realized that K.T.'s direct approach had finally run its course and it was time to play politics again. "You want to be compensated for the inconvenience they've caused."

"Inconvenience!" the prince asked incredulously. "Is that what you'd call it? I just had a dozen innocent bystanders gunned down and two cops crippled in the ballsiest jailbreak this state's seen in the last fifty years. This isn't a local matter anymore, boys – the feds are comin' into town. They're already here, in fact. My people were busy laying the groundwork for a plausible gang violence cover story when someone at Homeland Security connected the dots and decided that the only possible explanation was a terror cell operating on the doorstep of D.C.

"This isn't going away anytime soon, and while not much will really change on a day-to-day basis, the fact remains that some of my local anarchs are gonna run into trouble given the increased scrutiny, and it's gonna cost me to bail them out."

"And you deserve to be compensated," Yashida commented, feeling K.T.'s eyes turn on him as his own gaze remained riveted on the prince. "My friend and I are not without sympathy for your situation, and we have some resources of our own; is there something we could do that might help you forget everything our friends have done to upset your idyllic calm?"

"You know, you two should be a comedy team or something," Clovis commented as he leaned back with a large, satisfied grin. "The brainless cowboy and the scumbag politician. I think it would play well in the Heartland."

"And maybe we'll take our act on the road once we've done what we can to bail our friends out of trouble," Johnny responded. "I'm sure we can reach some kind of an arrangement."

"Of course we can," Clovis agreed. "Because, as a matter of fact, there _is_ something I'd like to have that I just can't seem to get my hands on; and I think you two might be the perfect volunteers for this particular job."

…………………………………………………………

**III**

"We're gonna be in Pennsylvania pretty soon," Michelle commented as she left I-95 and moved onto I-495, the beltway around Wilmington, Delaware. Erica's words a week earlier kept repeating in her head – _'If he even gets close to New York, we're gonna have to break off and let him go, because I'm not going anywhere near the Sabbat metroplex.'_ The Sabbat metroplex, as Erica referred to it, began in the Baltimore-D.C. area and continued north to Boston's southern suburbs. _I may not be a genius with geography, but I know enough to realize that we're already well within that area,_ Michelle thought worriedly. She began trying to think of a safe harbor if the two of them were discovered by any large Sabbat packs, but hideouts for Camarilla vampires were few and far between in this region. Their best bet was to take action right where they were, in Wilmington.

Despite Sabbat all around and two very brief falls to Sabbat war parties, Wilmington had been able to survive as a Camarilla city due in large part to local Ventrue banking interests. Simply put, there was just far too much money and influence in Wilmington to walk away. While most Camarilla clans had already cut their losses, accepting the inevitable in Delaware, the Ventrue continued to hold on with the tenacity of a bulldog. Besides the Ventrue, only the Tremere remained, refusing to withdraw as long as it was possible the Ventrue might prevail. The warlocks would never allow the Ventrue to be seen as being made of sterner stuff.

"It's now or never, isn't it?" Erica asked from the passenger seat, her eyes seemingly vacant. When they had continued north from Richmond several nights earlier, Michelle had become temporarily convinced that Erica meant to betray her, that she would end up falling within the clutches of the Sabbat once more. The excruciatingly slow pace they kept over the course of three nights had only fueled her fears, making her suspect that an elaborate trap was being prepared. It had not taken long, though, to put those fears to rest. Erica now possessed two moods – she was either obsessively focused on her prey, or she was possessed by a haunted melancholy. The Ventrue _antitribu_ oscillated unpredictably between the two, and Michelle found herself hoping that Erica would shift again very soon. She needed a fanatical hunter, not a despondent victim.

_And that's what she seems like when she gets like that,_ Michelle decided. _She seems like a victim, maybe as much of one as I ever was._ The Gangrel found herself wondering yet again what it was that had made Erica decide to leave the Sabbat, though days ago she had resigned herself to the conclusion that she would likely never know. "Yup, it's now or never," Michelle muttered, wishing that Erica had reached that decision about two hundred miles earlier.

Erica sighed deeply, and Michelle saw the mood shift she had been hoping for. "How fast this thing go?" she asked, a wicked grin spreading across her lips as she opened her laptop and pulled up the tracking program she had been using to follow their targets.

"You kidding?" Michelle asked, flooring the gas as she downshifted into fourth. The speedometer of the stolen RX-8 seemed to skip from 60 to 85 as Erica zoomed in on her laptop's map, depicting the position of the GPS beacon affixed to the Sabbats' car. Their target was less than a half-mile ahead, and closing fast.

"They're still going just a shade above the speed limit," Erica announced, knowing that Horatio and his friends would keep the speed down as long as they were in the Wilmington area. The Ventrue always infiltrated the police forces of their cities, and the last thing any Sabbat would want was a traffic stop in a Ventrue city; that was oftentimes the quickest route to death.

"There they are," Michelle said just a minute later, pointing to a Ford Explorer that was driving along in the middle of three lanes. "Take out the tires and we'll see if we can finish them right here."

"In the middle of the interstate?" Erica asked incredulously, looking around and noting that at least there were only two or three other vehicles within sight, given the late hour. "You're kidding, right?"

"Just make sure you don't get hit by a truck or something," Michelle advised. "We'll take them out, get back in the car, and haul ass outta here before any of the locals can show up and fill us with bullet holes."

"Good plan," Erica shouted, her additional, profanity-laced comments swept away by the wind as she climbed halfway out of the passenger side window and leveled an Uzi at her prey's vehicle. Michelle slowed in order to give Erica a better shot, and the sound of gunfire provided a soundtrack to the sight of the Ford Explorer veering sharply right as the driver sought to get away from his attackers. All he succeeded in doing, however, was pulling an unrecommended maneuver at highway speed, placing all of the vehicle's weight on two blown-out tires. Predictably enough, the Explorer rolled, spraying plastic and shards of glass across the asphalt as it lurched over onto the shoulder and down an embankment.

Michelle slammed on the brakes and spun the car around, coming to a stop on the shoulder facing back toward oncoming traffic. She was about to drive the hundred yards back to the battered Explorer when Erica threw the door open and started running toward her old friend and his cohorts. "Wait!" Michelle yelled, finding her seatbelt surprisingly reluctant to open. By the time the Gangrel reached her friend, crouched behind a tree, there was already an unhealthy number of bullets whizzing through the air.

Two of the Sabbat were trapped inside the rear of the Explorer, but four others had managed to crawl out. Two of them were busy keeping Erica and Michelle pinned while the other two pulled at the twisted metal, trying to open a wide enough space for the other two to escape.

"We have to take them out before they're all free of the car," Erica shouted as she stopped firing just long enough to reload her Uzi.

"No we don't," Michelle shouted back. She pulled a grenade out of her pocket and showed it to her friend; Erica seemed to cackle, realizing that the Sabbat had done a perfect job of positioning themselves close enough together that they would all be in the blast radius. Michelle was just about to pull the pin when a shroud of darkness smothered the battle.

_To be continued………………………………………_


	6. Chapter 5

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

…………………………………………………………

**Chapter 5**

**I **

Erica had just fired off a burst from her Uzi, hoping to provide enough cover to allow Michelle a good look at the Explorer when she lobbed her grenade. The Ventrue _antitribu_ was reasonably certain she had hit something, but the inky blackness that suddenly blocked her vision prevented her from knowing for sure. "Shit," Erica cursed as she held her body perfectly still, closed her eyes, and fired at the pinpoints of light that she saw. 'Echoes of muzzle flashes,' K.T. had once called them, and Erica remembered this particular lesson well. K.T. had been instructing her in methods for dealing with snipers, and this particular tactic had been simple – _freeze, close your eyes, and fire directly at the light that's echoing on the back of your eyelids._

Erica fired three more bursts; the first two resulted in the sounds of ricochets off of metal and glass, but the third one elicited a grunt of pain from one of her targets. Any further sound was blocked out by the sound of a tractor-trailer on the highway locking its wheels and overturning up on the highway. _Guess that's a pretty big shroud of darkness,_ Erica realized. Moments later a thunderous jolt of metal slamming into metal erupted from the roadway, announcing that another vehicle had run straight into the overturned truck.

"Erica!" Michelle screamed, her voice on the verge of panic. "I can't see anything! Why can't I see anything!"

"Fuck," Erica growled, instantly remembering her friend's acute phobia. "It's okay," Erica called out, her voice punctuated by the screeching of tires from the roadway above as another car encountered the accident at the far side of the shroud of darkness. There was no collision this time, though, and Erica prayed that the road was still clear enough for her and Michelle to make their planned escape. Erica emptied the rest of her clip and, staying crouched low to the ground, moved quickly in Michelle's direction as bullets whizzed past her head.

The Gangrel had only been about six feet to Erica's left before the darkness had engulfed the gun battle, but the Ventrue _antitribu_ was certain she had gone at least ten feet before she decided Michelle must have moved. _She's looking for a wall,_ Erica realized, recalling Michelle's tendency to bolt in any given direction in search of a wall – or preferably a corner – in order to help her get her bearings. _And she's not likely to find any walls out here in the open._

"Erica!" Michelle yelled again, this time from Erica's right. "What's going on?"

"They're shooting at us," Erica yelled, wishing that the darkness would lift so Michelle could get back in the fight. _Or so I could see well enough to shoot her myself. _"Get back in the goddamn game or they're gonna get away!"

Erica was shot three times before she was able to chastise herself for yelling and giving her position away to the enemy. _But one of them can see me right now,_ she reminded herself, being somewhat familiar with the blanket of shadows that she was certain was the result of the vampiric ability of obtenebration. Practitioners of obfuscate could also conjure shadows, but Erica knew that Michelle's ability to see in the dark would penetrate a shadow created with obfuscate; such was not the case with obtenebration's darkness. Only the creator of the shroud would be able to see, and Erica was certain that he was busy getting his friends out of the dark so that they could make a clean getaway. _If he was gonna use the dark as cover to approach and kill us, I'd probably be dead already._

More bullets were fired in Erica's general direction, but she had been able to move by then. A ricochet grazed her thigh, but that was merely a scratch compared to the bullet she'd taken in the gut. The pain was starting to incapacitate her, and Erica found it impossible to concentrate enough to mend the wound; she was far too busy firing at her enemies, keeping herself moving to decrease the chances of being shot again, and exhorting Michelle to get her head together and re-join the fight. _Son of a bitch is gonna get away, and I'm not gonna get a chance to tag whatever car they get their hands on. All this way, and he's gonna slip through my fingers._

"No!" she heard Michelle scream defiantly. Erica immediately shifted her weight toward the Gangrel's voice, convinced that her assumption had been incorrect and that the caster of the shadow was indeed looking to finish them off. A flurry of gunfire cam from Michelle's position as she fired straight through the entire clip in her 9mm. The sound of shattering glass came from up ahead, and moments later there were screams. _Male screams,_ Erica noticed.

"Where are you?" Michelle called out. Her voice was back to being under some semblance of control. "Are you hit?"

"Get over here," Erica called out, immediately shifting herself slightly in Michelle's direction. More screams started coming from below, and Erica caught the unmistakable scent of burning flesh. A moment later Michelle's hand clamped down on her thigh. "Michelle?"

"Yeah," her friend answered. "Something's on fire down there. And from the screams I'm assuming it's the Explorer. I don't think those two guys got out of the back."

"What if it blows up?"

"Then we probably get set on fire," Michelle commented none too reassuringly but with a sarcasm that defied the terror that was all but paralyzing her. She started pulling Erica away just as more gunfire erupted from below. A scream followed, and then Horatio's familiar voice tore through the darkness, screaming in an inhumanly high pitch.

"You bitch. You're dead! You're fucking dead!" Any other words he might have added were drowned out by the man's agonized screams. Both Erica and Michelle could guess what happened – Horatio had caught fire.

"Even in the dark, the Rottschreck will get them," Michelle said, backing away more and making certain Erica was staying with her. The heat was starting to grow oppressive, and Erica could taste the smoke every time she drew breath to speak. "We have to go."

"I'm hit bad," Erica gasped, gritting her teeth against the pain. She felt Michelle hoist her up in her arms and half-stumble back up the hill toward the interstate. A loud truck horn blasted ahead of them, and a moment later glass sprayed across their faces as a second truck joined the growing pile of scrap metal on Interstate 495. _'Make sure you don't get hit by a truck or something,' _Erica remembered Michelle joking before they had started the shooting. _She almost jinxed us from the get-go with that comment._

"Oh God!" Michelle yelled, briefly stumbling awkwardly as she bolted forward in a celerity-fueled sprint.

A moment later Erica realized why. _Gas. That second truck was hauling gasoline… it's all over, probably all over Michelle's feet, too. The heat that had been dying away since the pair reached the highway now flared._ Michelle reached the edge of the darkness and kept moving as fast as she could. Erica, still carried by the Gangrel, looked back and saw an intense orange glow that was blotted out by a large hemisphere of darkness. Then the truck exploded.

In that moment it was almost as if the fire turned the tables on the darkness, dousing the shadows in a blast of light that then spread out and banished the night for a mile in every direction. Erica felt her hair shrivel in the heat and her head was starting to swoon. "Don't look back, Michelle," she warned. "Keep running and don't look back."

…………………………………………………………

**II**

"Well, it's been fun," K.T. said as he started up the brand new Indian bike he had just bought in Wilmington.

"And we didn't get shot up nearly as bad as we usually do," Yashida pointed out. "That was new and different."

"See ya 'round," the Gangrel said as he kick-started the bike. Johnny flashed a slight wave and walked in the other direction, allowing K.T. to ride off into the night, secure in the illusion that Johnny had no idea what he had been up to.

No sooner had K.T.'s form melted into the darkness than Johnny was thinking back over the gunfight along I-495. _Michelle and Erica did a good job,_ he decided. _They hit the Explorer, flipped it off the highway, and had their enemies pinned. The way they went about the attack tells me they weren't just going about killing random Sabbat… they were targeting those guys specifically. But why?_

As he climbed onto his new Kawasaki Ninja, Yashida toyed with the idea of asking Michelle what she and Erica had been up to, but he discarded that idea quickly. _If I ask about her and Erica, then she'll at least suspect – and probably know – that I was out here trying to stop her. And if I just ask what she was up to, I know damn well she's going to omit any reference to her newfound sidekick. The only way to pump her for information on this is to hope that she slips up someday._ "But what was K.T. up to?" the Telemon asked the darkness around him as he pulled out into traffic, hoping he would be able to make it far enough west before sunrise so that he would be able to sleep safely during the day.

He went over the gunfight yet again in his mind. _We were following a little back when Michelle punched it and Erica started hanging out the window with an Uzi in her hand. We fell back a little more, and when it became clear that Erica was going to take out the Explorer right there on the highway I killed the lights, ditched the Camaro off the side of the road, and we ran up to the accident site on foot. They'd already started shooting by that point._

Johnny thought very carefully, trying to figure out if there was anything he was forgetting. _Just a few seconds of assessing the situation, and that was when K.T. came up with his plan._ The Telemon shook his head in frustration as he remembered the rest.

"Test Michelle with a shroud of darkness my ass," the Telemon cursed as he recalled K.T.'s suggestion. _As if his concerns had anything to do with Michelle and not his blood-bound companion._ Johnny was almost offended that his friend thought he could be so gullible. _If it was all about testing Michelle, he wouldn't have insisted that I wait until he was right on top of the Sabbat before I dropped the shroud,_ Johnny decided, remembering K.T. altering his form into a mist and descending upon the Sabbat right before the Telemon turned out the lights.

_And the best he could come up with was that he wanted to help out the girls in case Michelle wasn't able to handle it,_ Johnny thought with a laugh. The Telemon thought it obvious that K.T. wanted to get into the fight without Erica ever having known he had been there; the only question he had was why.

The most likely answer was that K.T. had wanted Erica to think that she and Michelle had handled six Sabbat on their own. It was a perfectly good reason, and one that Johnny would gladly have accepted. _Hell, if he had suggested that, I would have been right there with him, shooting up the bad guys, knowing that Michelle would have gotten the confidence boost of her life, thinking that she had been able to take out that many enemies while fending off panic caused by the dark. But the fact is, he never suggested that._

K.T.'s silence when a simple lie would have been perfect led Johnny to conclude that there had been more going on. _All six were dead – dead and charred to ash. Guess it's not an unthinkable stroke of luck, having a fuel truck coming along thereat that time. After all, there are God only knows how many refineries all along the river in that area. But even without that, it seemed that K.T. made certain that the two Erica and Michelle **did** incapacitate on their own were extinguished before the shroud of darkness dissipated. One would almost think that he was trying to keep them quiet about something. This grows curiouser and curiouser._

………………………

_Crazy bitch,_ K.T. seethed as he sped down the highway in the opposite direction. When Johnny had mentioned offhandedly that maybe it was Erica who had started the interstate chase of the Sabbat, K.T.'s stomach had twisted itself in a knot. While the Telemon had clearly been desperate to find alternative explanations, trying to find any plausible reason Michelle might not have been the one to instigate the two girls' chase, K.T. had been struck by a possibility that Yashida could not begin to guess. _Erica was trying to find out what happened in New York,_ he knew. _Maybe she happened upon a Sabbat pack and decided to take a chance, or maybe she actually ran into someone she knew from back in the day. Either way, I _know_ that's what she was up to._

The Gangrel had no proof of his suspicions, and he was well aware that he would never be able to broach the subject with his companion. Erica was many things, but stupid was not one of them; K.T. had to accept the fact that he lacked the subtlety necessary to get into that conversation without letting Erica know that it had been him, and not her and Michelle, who had extinguished the Sabbat.

_And of course, that raises another uncomfortable matter,_ K.T. admitted. It was Hassan who had allowed him to go out into the field, to leave his training early in order to get his companion out of an uncomfortable position. _But he held back a fairly crucial detail – he didn't tell me that it was Erica, and not Michelle, who had likely started it all. Though maybe it **was** Michelle,_ he mused, now determined to convince himself that his gut instinct was wrong for the first time in decades._ Maybe Michelle called up, and Erica got it in her head that they should capture a few of them alive. It could have happened that way._ Though it could have happened that way, K.T. was certain that it did not.

"I'm gonna have to admit that Erica just isn't past needing to know what really happened," he told the night air. "This is gonna be a real problem someday… Someday she's gonna find a way to get at the truth, and I won't be there to stop her.

…………………………………………………………

**III**

"We should do this again sometime," Erica said with a smile as Michelle scanned the street for an acceptable car.

"Yeah, sure," the Gangrel answered noncommittally. She finally decided on a 2002 Chevy Impala and set to work on the simple factory model alarm. She took her time, not bothering to rush despite the fact that the Wilmington police were doubtlessly looking for both her and Erica; she simply hoped that getting away from the highway and stealing Erica a Mustang and herself the Impala would slow any police pursuit.

"You did all right out there," Erica commented as Michelle finished off the alarm and went to work on the door. That only took a few seconds, and then she was busy with the ignition.

"I got by," Michelle finally said. "That's really all I did – I got by."

"And what more did you want? I remember what you were like before DuPree." Michelle winced at the mention of the Sabbat bishop, but Erica continued. "You were never gonna win kindred bad-ass of the year, Michelle. You're damned good at what you do, so stop kicking yourself for not being something you couldn't even be before things got all screwed up."

"Screwed up?" the Gangrel asked caustically, wondering what other ways Erica might have been able to make light of being held captive for weeks and psychologically tortured to the point that she developed an acute phobia. "I'm a little more than screwed up."

"Not anymore you're not," Erica responded.

"Huh?"

"One of those bastards dropped a shroud of darkness and you fought through it."

"I panicked and only managed to get a few shots off because my life depended on it," Michelle countered. "You know, with my luck, sure… I was able to get some shots off. But it was probably me who hit the gas tank or their Molotov cocktails and got them roasted before you could get your information or whatever it is you wanted. Not that the fuel truck made things much better."

Erica nodded slightly, as if she had already considered that very possibility, but rather than launch a more characteristic, stinging rebuke, she continued her efforts of encouraging her friend. "And do you honestly think you could have done even that much a year ago?" she asked.

"If I had to."

"Maybe… maybe. But I know things got a shitload more desperate at Disney before you pulled yourself together and started thinking straight. And even then, as soon as it was over you fell right to pieces again. That didn't happen this time, or haven't you noticed." Michelle hadn't noticed, and now she was starting to feel a little foolish.

"Okay, so maybe I'm a little better now," the Gangrel admitted.

"You're _a lot_ better now," Erica replied. "And you know how I know for sure?"

"How?"

"You turned off the dome light when you were hotwiring the Mustang's ignition," Erica said. "I don't think you even noticed, but I did. In every car we've stolen between here and Pensacola, you turned on the dome light before you ducked your head under the dash or anything. You couldn't even handle the darkness in a parked car, but you did tonight. And you did it without even thinking about it, as if dealing with the dark was natural."

"Holy shit," Michelle mumbled, realizing that Erica was right. It was something so trivial, so insignificant, that she hadn't even realized she had done it. "So like, baby steps."

"Baby steps," Erica agreed. "Can't reach the finish line all at once."

"I guess that's advice that could go for you, too," the Gangrel commented, turning to the Ventrue _antitribu_, giving her her undivided attention now that the wiring was all set up and ready to start the car.

"Huh?"

"Whatever it was you wanted from Horatio, I guess it'll have to wait a little bit. And sorry, by the way, if it's my fault things went south on that. But there've gotta be other people who have the information you want."

"I suppose. It's just that… I don't know. It just pisses me off, ya know? We had them dead to rights, and then one of them must have tried using one of those Molotov cocktails without seeing where he was throwing it. What the hell are the chances of something like that happening? It pisses me off so much."

"Give it time. You'll get another chance eventually; and when you do, give me a call."

"So you think you might go through something like this again?"

"It was fun," Michelle responded with a grin. "It's sorta like the stuff Johnny and I used to do back in the day. So yeah… I'd do it again."

"Then make sure I always have your cell number," Erica said. "You never know when I might be giving you a call."

Michelle nodded and smiled as she started the Impala, then pulled away into the night, trying to determine the fastest way out of Sabbat territory and into safety. _First north, and then west to Harrisburg,_ she decided. _I sill know a couple of people there, and maybe my dad can come out and help me get a train ticket or something._

The Gangrel turned on the car stereo, scanning for something to listen to and finally settling for a hip-hop station that was playing 50 Cent's _In da Club_. She cranked the volume and rolled down the windows, shocked at how good it felt to be out alone in the middle of the night, despite the fact that her life would likely be forfeit if she ran into any of her kind in that area. She was not over her phobia; she knew that much. Shadows at the edge of her headlights still attracted undue attention, and she found herself completely unwilling to risk so much as a glance into the back seat, but she felt the thrill of one who had just overcome the first of a series of obstacles. Now the rest of her journey not only seemed possible, it seemed like it was only a matter of time.

………………………

Michelle was long gone by the time Erica turned over the Mustang's engine and pulled away from the curb. Like the Gangrel, she was concerned about the possibility of running into Sabbat before she could reach Camarilla-held territory. _But at least I've run with the Sabbat,_ she reasoned. _I can make up a name and fake being one of them if I have to… I doubt they'd be able to figure out who I am before I'm able to slip away to safety._

Weighing more heavily on her mind were concerns about her past. And her future. She started thinking once again about the thoughts that had surprised her in Birmingham. An attack on her targets had disrupted her train of thought that night, and she and Michelle had been busy enough since then so that she had not had an opportunity to return to what she had to admit was an uncomfortable epiphany.

_I've spent years wondering what really happened in New York, trying to figure out why the Sabbat wanted me dead. It's occurred to me to wonder who did it and why, but I never really focused on those questions because I always assumed that knowing what really happened would answer that. But I've never asked the other two important questions – how did K.T. know the people who altered me, and why didn't they alter him, too?_

_To be continued………………………………………_


	7. Epilogue

Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is coincidental and unintended.

…………………………………………………………

**Epilogue**

"Over the years I've tolerated a great deal from you, Philip, but this time I believe you've gone too far," Hassan muttered angrily. A murderous glare appeared in his eyes, and Philip found himself as unnerved as he supposed every one of Hassan's victims always were. _But I'm not one of his helpless victims,_ he reminded himself. _He may be one of the most formidable of our kind on this side of the world, but that doesn't mean he has any power over me._

"Why Hassan, you look as if you mean to kill me," Philip commented as glibly as he could manage, noting with satisfaction that he did not hear the slightest hint of trepidation in his voice. _Hassan is a Dominion of the True Hand, an assassin of renowned skill. But I'm no slouch, and he knows it. Besides, I have friends. If my ability to hold him at bay doesn't stay his hand, his knowledge of the consequences of any rash actions should at least make him think twice._

"No," Hassan seethed, the glow in his eyes fading the slightest bit as a faint glimmer of rationality twinkled to life. "I'm not going to kill you, Philip. But rest assured that this will not go unanswered. You have no authority over me, and you have no right to make me a pawn in your games. Our superiors will hear of this."

"Our superiors already know," Philip said, relishing the look of shock that not only banished the remainder of Hassan's overt rage, but also replaced it with a comically dumbfounded grimace that lingered for several satisfying moments. The Assamite did not respond, so Philip continued. "My request to have the Telemon neonate observed raised a few eyebrows, as it was still presumed that I was working with Mr. Corben. I explained that I had given up on K.T., but that you had taken him on to mold him in your own image.

"Let me assure you, Hassan, that our superiors were not pleased with either one of us. There were some who questioned my wisdom first in recruiting one as young and hardheaded as K.T. in the first place, and many more who doubted my perseverance when I discarded him after such a short period of indoctrination. The fact that I then went and neglected to report my abandonment of Mr. Corben was not met with an abundance of pleasure, either. Of course, the only thing that turned more heads than your decision to adopt my abandoned apprentice was my sudden interest in an even younger and more unpredictable recruit. It was even suggested that perhaps we had both lost our senses… or at least our good judgment.

"A test was proposed," Philip explained, finally getting to the meat of the conversation. "I was to justify my interest in Yashida by demonstrating that his companion would not cause the same confusion and vulnerability that Erica always incited in K.T. Furthermore, to illustrate my continued cunning, I was to dupe you into throwing your own protégé into the mix, to turn this into a four-way test of the worth of our chosen apprentices and their selected companions. And of course while they were being tested in the field, we were being tested in the classroom, so to speak."

"Son of a bitch," Hassan growled, though Philip was reasonably certain that he was referring to the situation and their superiors rather than to him.

"I've been informed that all of us have passed our tests, though we are advised to be mindful that centuries of service do not provide us with a free pass when it comes to carelessness and stupidity. That goes equally for both of us, Hassan."

"Still testing us after all this time…"

"Yes, and I think that given what we do for the Hand, we of all people should have known better than to get ourselves into this mess," Philip commented, no small bit of embarrassment coloring his voice, providing Hassan with as much of an apology as he could expect to receive. The Assamite took it as it was intended.

"Then we had best make certain that Mr. Corben and Mr. Yashida both excel," the dark-skinned assassin said. "More so Mr. Corben than Mr. Yashida, I suppose, since you have not made any overt move to recruit the Telemon yet."

"That matters little, I'm afraid," Philip replied, managing to keep his anxiety out of his voice as well as he had managed to conceal his fear when Hassan had seemed ready to gut him minutes earlier. "There are some who commented that my strength as a recruiter was in my instinct for finding the diamond in the rough. I was proven dreadfully wrong with K.T., and if Yashida turns out to be another mistake, I may find my position more tenuous than I would like. Times are different than they were five hundred years ago. Even some of the elders are growing impatient, and I think that worries me more than anything."

"Yes, it seems they know far more about something than they're letting on," Hassan agreed.

"Not that that's anything new," Philip pointed out, "but lately it seems as if everything they know that we don't happens to be bad. That makes me nervous."

"It's nothing we can change right now," Hassan responded absently, turning to look out the window. "All we can do is our jobs, and in those jobs we had best succeed."

"I couldn't agree more," Philip replied. "And that's why I think it's best if we end playtime for Mr. Corben and Mr. Yashida."

Fin


End file.
